I’ve eaten a lot of great food this year, so thought I would do a round up post of some places I would definitely recommend you eat at in 2020. 

CASUAL EATS

COCKTAIL BEER RAMEN + BUN

I can never remember the name of this place. So I always refer to it as ‘that ramen place with the silly name’, but the food is seriously good. The £10 ramen with a bao bun deal can’t be beaten.

PASTA FACTORY

Another one with a misleading name. On hearing it, I assumed it was going to be some chain restaurant serving up mass produced rubbish, but I could not be more wrong.

This is probably my favourite restaurant in Manchester. It’s family run, everything is made fresh and local to a particular part of Italy (not a spag bol or carbonara in sight) and they run a deli selling their own pasta and wonderful ingredients like pecorino cheese or the ever trendy nduja sausage.

If anyone is actually reading this and takes away one thing: please let it be to eat here.

(Not all of these pics are from 2019).

ALMOST FAMOUS

This is more of an honourable mention, as they appeared in my last round up post (in 2016!), but they continued to be awesome in the last year. They did a special mash up with Mughli (an Indian restaurant in Rusholme) which explains the bright green food in the pic below and was delicious, but apparently I was craving a corn dog that day.

CRAZY PEDRO’S

You can keep your sourdough, trendy, virtually no cheese on pizza. New York style pizza is my favourite and the best place to get it in Manchester is here.

FINE DINING

KALA

Any meal that starts with a pate and ends with a chocolate dessert is always going to please me and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was all perfect. At the time we visited, the specials on their cocktail menu were made with Old J rum, which is my personal favourite. Loved it. 

UMEZUSHI (RIP)

Umezushi is no longer. The owners have opened a new place called ‘Chish & Fips’ which we have not yet been to, but I’m very glad that we managed to get to Umezushi before it closed. Our colleagues bought us this meal for a wedding present and it was worthy of a gift. The sashimi course and the different types of tuna nigiri were particularly delicious. 

ADAM REID AT THE FRENCH

We went for the ‘Great British Menu’ set menu and it was great to find that those dishes you see on TV actually do taste delicious. The highlights for me were the starter and dessert. Adam also brought two of our dishes out and was a lovely bloke.