Manchester may not have its own Michelin star yet, but soon you’ll get the opportunity to sample cuisine from chefs holding the accolade as part of this year’s Manchester Food and Drink Festival.
Simon Rogan will be hosting Chef Week at The French September 15-19 with a different chef from his portfolio of restaurants hosting their own evening to demonstrate their distinctive cooking style. Each has created a nine-course menu especially for the festival, with many of the ingredients coming from the team’s own farm in Cumbria.
Tom Barnes, head chef at two Michelin-starred restaurant L’Enclume in Cartmel, will kick off the week on Tuesday September 15.
He’ll be followed by David Simms of Simon Rogan Restaurants on Wednesday September 16, and Dan Cox of Fera at Claridges, which gained one Michelin star within months of opening its doors, on Thursday September 17.
Simon Rogan himself will take to the kitchen on Friday September 18 and the week will be completed by The French’s head chef Adam Reid on Saturday September 19.
In case you can’t decide which evening to book for, here’s the full list of menus:
Tom Barnes
Chicken dumpling
Beef and oyster
Creamed duck gizzards, Tunworth, whey, onions and chestnuts
Raw scallop, apple, kohlrabi, hazelnut and horseradish
Roasted cauliflower, smoked eel, cured pork and sorrel
Butter poached turbot, violet artichoke, fermented mushroom, sea vegetables
Roasted Valley hare, caper jam, beetroot and blackberry
Crozier Blue cheese, pear cooked in beeswax, fruit bread
Birch sap mousse, pumpkin and almond
David Simms
Mackerel, horseradish and dill
Chickpea wafer, garlic, cheese and flowers
Squash, Morecambe Bay shrimp, black pudding
Crab, runner bean vinaigrette, shallot
Carrots with ham fat and nasturtium
Five spice monkfish, parsnip, raspberry vinegar
Reg’s duck, beetroot, grilled onion, girolle, damson
Oatmeal stout ice cream, elderberry vinegar, rye and ginger bread
Aerated honeycomb mousse, poached quince, quince purée, cobnut biscuit and shiso
Dan Cox
Stewed rabbit, lovage emulsion
Radish, turbot roe, nasturtium
Tomato, mackerel, kohlrabi and marigold
Flaky crab, cucumber, garden herbs, frozen cream
Grilled carrot, smoked jowl, nasturtium
Steamed cod, girolles, turnip and fennel
Cornish lamb and sweetbread, onion, artichoke and orpine
Camomile, celery, pineapple sage
Meadowsweet custard, apple, hazelnut and brown sugar
Simon Rogan
Oyster pebbles
Pork and eel, ham fat cream
Hot pot
Grilled salad, truffle custard, Isle of Mull cheese, sunflower seeds
Native lobster, cooked in its own juices, pickled beetroot, sea herbs, cuckoo flower
Charred hake fillet, steamed over pine, Jerusalem artichoke, abalone
55-day dry-aged pork, cooked 24 hours in Northern mead, vintage vegetables and nasturtium
Cumbrian slate, blackberry, apple, lemon verbena
Sweet brackens with rosehips, cobnut and sweet cheese
Adam Reid
Crispy pig skin, blood cake
Oyster pearl, apple and seaweed
Beenleigh Blue cream, pickled red cabbage, linseeds
Golden turnip dumplings, Westcombe cheddar, English truffle and onion
Smoked yolk and artichokes, kales, hazelnut and mustard
Pollock poached in coral butter, lobster, butternut and nasturtiums
Reg’s corn fed duckling with wild cherries, chanterelles and parsnip
Macerated blackberries and raspberries, liquorice and fennel
Preserved gooseberries, pears poached in elderflower, fried bread with a cultured cream and elderberries
Chef Week, The French, September 15-19. Menus £100 per person, accompanying wine flight available on request at £60 per person. £20 from each ticket will be donated to Hospitality Action.