Street food adventures in Manchester
Ciao a tutti! Hello everyone!
March has been a brilliant month and Giordano and I have been busy bees recently! As well as dreaming up new ideas for future menus and for the blog, we’ve been immersing ourselves in Manchester’s street food community and have had some very interesting adventures. I had a lot of fun exploring different events; as a street food trader visiting various events as a customer, I sort of feel like I’m working undercover! We also got a taste of what it’s like to trade at a big city centre event; more on that later!
First, we had a look at B.EAT St at the Great Northern Warehouse on Deansgate, a weekly event known as the Friday Food Fight. We got there quite early and, while we couldn’t stay long, we enjoyed being swept along by the beats and sampled some delicious beer! It would be great to go back when it’s a bit busier. While we saw a wide variety of customers and a mix of couples, families and students, it definitely feels like B.EAT St is the sort of event to visit with a big group of friends. I was also disappointed by the lack of vegetarian choice at this event; unless I wanted some cake for my tea there wasn’t really anything for me to eat! If you squint you might be able to see us with our beer at B.EAT St in the picture below:
Another street food event I’m really interested in is Guerrilla Eats. Open every Saturday night, they have taken up a 12-week residency at The Wonder Inn at Shudehill and have a rolling list of traders at each event. The venue is divided up into street food stalls spread across several different rooms and floors, and definitely has that quirky warehouse feel about it. We went as customers on their second week of opening and tried both some lovely craft beer and some delicious pizza, which will definitely keep us going until we next visit Italy! Here I am with my beer and a big grin on my face:
Finally, a few weeks ago we visited the opening night of Urban Food Fest at the end of Deansgate. This was actually the first street food event we went to as customers, but I’ve saved it until last for a reason. We didn’t get great weather on the night, but the atmosphere was fantastic. We had such a good time that we decided to enquire about a pitch for an upcoming event as soon as we could. The event organisers came straight back to us with available dates, and I’m extremely pleased and proud to say that, exactly a month after visiting Urban Food Fest as customers, we went back as traders!!
On the night we served a tomato and black olive focaccia which proved very popular at our Broadbottom street food event last autumn, plus four different panini with a variety of hot and cold fillings:
We had another evening of Mancunian weather (boo!), but had lots of visits from friends and family (hooray!), plus we met some lovely fellow traders and street food enthusiasts. We would love to go back very soon!
I’m going to finish off this blog post with one of my favourite photos from the event. Nigel and Lorraine are friends who I used to work with on Lake Garda. They had an epic journey from Yorkshire by bus, train and on foot to come and try our food. Thank you again, and thanks to our friend Jonnie B for the brilliant pictures! x
Laura