Erst

Go to Erst and you’ll probably have the best meal of your life. For them, it’s just Tuesday. 

And as fate would have it, we do indeed take a visit on a hazy Tuesday eve in May to dive into their spring/summer menu. 

Above all else – the Nordic decor, the cosy layout, the exceptional food – it’s striking just how effortless it feels. Go to Mana (which we love equally) and the chefs are a vibrating army of laser-focused cooking machines, whereas here, everything just flows. 

Managers, waiting staff, kitchen team – everyone is enjoying themselves, and that feeds into the customers. There’s a quiet sense that this is the best place to dine out in Ancoats, if not the whole of Manchester, and it probably is. 

If you’re a sucker for stars, then let it be known that Erst has been mentioned in the Michelin guide for the past few years, and rightly so. It ticks every box, and the dishes are genuinely original without being madcap or trend-hungry. 

Rather, each small plate has a timeless feel, where it could have been put together in some form by intrepid chefs going back centuries – as the restaurant name implies. No spherification or Rube Goldberg plating here. 

The pork collar dish is a perfect example: a silk-thin sheet of cold roast pork collar, soft and gloriously fatty, dashed with mussel sauce, and a handful of pickled mussels scattered over the lot. 

Minimal ingredients, but together the flavours sing. Cut slices off or – my personal favourite – wrap up a mussel in the pork and scoff it down, tangy sweet flavours exploding with each bite. 

But that’s just one option from a menu packed with smart ideas, each of them executed beautifully. 

All in all, Erst could be Manchester’s best restaurant. You can pop in for a drink, and end up enjoying the most you glass of wine imaginable, matched with your palate to the nth degree. 

Or you could just grab a snack. How does grilled flatbread smothered with beef fat and urfa chilli sound? So good, you’ll be Harry Met Sallying, but not faking it. 

Better still, live it up and work your way through the entire menu with friends. But book ahead – on an ordinary Tuesday evening, it was standing room only. No surprise – it’s common knowledge that these guys are operating on a different level. There’s Erst, then there’s everywhere else.