SOME clever hombre at Taste of Manchester labelled the cluster of Spanish restaurants around Deansgate the ‘Magnifico Seven’ and the monicker seems to have stuck. Take a bow Evuna, El Rincon, Tapeo (pictured above), La Bandera, Iberico, El Gato Negro and Lunya.
All seven feature in one of the stand-out events of the 2016 Manchester Food and Drink Festival – The Spanish Trail.
For two consecutive nights (Wed Oct 5 and Thu Oct 7) this tapas crawl celebrates the remarkable blossoming of Spanish cuisine in a copmpact area of the city centre, unique in the UK
At 6pm each night participants will gather in that centre of all things Iberian, the Instituto Cervantes – on Deansgate, the new Ramblas, of course) – for a glass or two of Cava before splitting into two groups, each led by a green badge guide. Trail One one takes in Evuna, Tapeo, El Rincon and Iberica; Trail Two El Rincon, Lunya, La Bandera and El Gato Negro. At each stop along the way a drink and a signature tapa will be served.
Tickets are £65 a head plus booking fees. Buy them here. Only 100 tickets are available across the two nights, so act quickly.
The day after, Friday, October 7, there’s a pop-up dinner at the festival Hub in Albert Square, celebrating a great Spanish (Basque really) pioneer out in Ramsbottom. Baratxuri In The City imports the tastes of Northern Spain that have been wowing fans for the past 12 months.
Joe Botham (nominated for Chef of this Year for Levanter in this year’s Food and Drink Awards) and his team are specialist in pintxos, those tapas-like tidbits you nibble in the bars of San Sebastian and Bilbao. So expect the likes of txistorra, a chorizo sausage roll, or txangurro a la donastiana, a spider crab tartlet. Tickets are £40 a head. Buy them here.