Former homeless chef wins Michelin star for Manchester
A MANCHESTER restaurant has won the city’s first Michelin star in more than 40 years.
Simon Martin, a formerly homeless chef, won the accolade for his restaurant Mana, which has won rave reviews since it opened just last year and is fully booked for months in advance.
“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 incredible,” he said last night.
Mr Martin, who trained at the prestigious Noma in Copenhagen, serves a 16-course tasting menu using locallygrown and foraged seasonal ingredients. Dishes include grilled onions, kelp and fermented rice, and salt-aged duck hung over burning charcoal.
Mr Martin is said to have been left penniless at the end of his three-month unpaid internship at Noma. He was rewarded with a full-time job but was forced to live on the streets for two weeks until he got his first pay cheque.
It was when he returned to the UK that he opened Mana, even travelling to Sweden to persuade Noma’s elderly butter producer to supply him, too.
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 last Greater Manchester restaurant to have a star was Juniper in Altrincham, which held it for 11 years until its chef, Paul Kitching, moved to Edinburgh in 2009.
Other restaurants that were last night awarded their first star include Stark in Broadstairs, Kent, Cottage in the Woods in the Lake District, Artichoke in Old Amersham and Pensons in Hertfordshire.
The Lecture Room at Sketch in London was awarded its third star while Niall Keating, of the Dining Room at Whatley Manor in Malmesbury, was among those who picked up their second star.