SIMON IS STAR CHEF
Manchester restaurant gets city’s first Michelin star in more than 40 years
MANCHESTER restaurant Mana has earned the city’s first Michelin star in more than 40 years.
Simon Martin was awarded the prestigious accolade yesterday – less than a year after opening his ambitious Ancoats venture.
The accomplishment caps off a successful 12 months for the restaurant, in which it has earned shining reviews from The Sunday Times, The Guardian and the M.E.N.
Accepting the award, Simon said: “It puts quite a bit of pressure on. It’s something quite a lot of people expected from us from the start but it’s absolutely amazing to be her in front of all these people – it’s incredible.”
Martin, who trained at Copenhagen’s feted Noma, serves a 16-course tasting menu making use of locallygrown and foraged seasonal ingredients in dishes such as grilled onions, kelp and fermented rice, salt-aged duck hung over burning charcoal, and yakitori-style eel with roasted yeast and blueberry.
Even before yesterday’s announcement, it has been booked out most nights for months in advance.
The award, handed out at a ceremony in London, marks the end of Manchester’s long-running will-wewon’t-we Michelin saga.
The last Greater Manchester restaurant to have a star was Juniper in Altrincham, which held it for 11 years until chef Paul Kitching left to relocate to Edinburgh in 2009.
The French was the first and only Manchester city centre establishment to be awarded a Michelin star, which it held from 1974 until 1977.
The Midland Hotel institution has been one of the city’s highest hopes for a star again in recent years after Simon Rogan, of the Michelin-starred L’Enclume in Cumbria, was brought on board in 2013.
Rogan parted ways with the hotel in 2016 after failing to secure a star, leaving the kitchen in the very capable hands of head chef Adam Reid.
Driving up standards even higher with his name over the door – earning and maintaining a fourth AA rosette and climbing up two places to be named the 11th best restaurant in the UK in the Good Food Guide last month – Reid was overlooked for a star again this year.
Enxaneta, the newly-launched fine dining experience at City boss Pep Guardiola and Michelin-starred Catalan chef Paco Perez’ King Street restaurant Tast, was also tipped for a star by some in the industry but missed out.
Stockport’s acclaimed Where the Light Gets In had also been considered to be a contender, having earned acclaim since opening in 2016, but was passed over again too.
Aiden Byrne, who reopened Manchester House as Restaurant MCR last year, also missed out on the star he has been aiming for at the venue since it opened under its original name in 2013.