Cornerhouse -
where to start eh? I luckily used to work right near this centre of
arty-cultural goodness so its delights were ready available. But last week
I met an old work colleague for some Cornerhouse pizza action, and I
realised how much I missed it.

For those of you who don’t know, the Cornerhouse is a cinema, showing
independent and arty films, a great cafe and bar and exhibition space
for contemporary art. There is also a great little shop full of cool
and contemporary arty magazines, but also excellent greetings card and
postcards.

Set
on the end of Oxford Road (at the crossroads of Whitworth Street), it
is a great location, right near the universities but also the Palace
Theatre (and Sainsbury’s but that’s only a bonus when you work in the
area).

The
pizzas are the main draw for me, but when I went last week they had
changed slightly – but no fear they’re now all-improved stonebaked
Napoli pizzas. I always have La Reine (£7.25) which is a feast of
Prosciutto ham, olives, mushrooms and tomato, and the new addition of
rocket and shaved parmesan scattered over the top.

The
Americano (£6.25) was also a heaped pile of tomato, mozzarella,
pepperoni and spicy jalapenos. The pizzas aren’t strictly the same as
you get in Italy but how could they be? For Manchester, they are really
excellent versions of the Italian delicacy. I just don’t think our
Northern palate would appreciated the more delicate balance of pizza
base and topping – we like our pizzas heaped with warming tomato and
cheese over here, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve
also been to Cornerhouse for brunch in between morning meetings, and
sampled this baby (pictured above, £5.25). The field mushrooms are fried until
golden and then heaped upon brown crunchy toast with wilted spinach, tomatoes and
a good handful of strong goats’ cheese. Mmm look at it.

Have a look at the full menu here.

The
Cornerhouse shows great films that you can’t see in the mainstream
picturehouses, but generally they’re only shown for a week so by the
time I decide I want to see and manage to find a free evening, it’s
usually gone.

It was opened in 1985 after Shaw’s furniture
store and the Tatler cinema club were converted into the three cinemas,
three galleries and cafe bar. It is run by an independent charitable
trust and sees more than 300,000 visitors each year. The only little
bugbear I have as a journalist is the insistence on it being called
Cornerhouse, not and never THE Cornerhouse. Which is all fine until it
bumps up against basic grammar rules, so pah I say to that.

You can also follow the lovely people at the Cornerhouse on Twitter: @cornerhousemcr. Check out the website for the latest cinema and art listings.

Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH
T: 0161 200 1500
W: www.cornerhouse.org

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Whatever anyone says about British cuisine, you really can’t beat a
large creamy chicken pie or tender steak pie with thick gravy  on a
wintery day. It’s comfort food at its best, and if made from scratch it
isn’t as unhealthy as a store-bought second rate effort.

Nexus on Dale Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter serves Pieminister’s
offering, as does Cup round the corner, which is not a bad thing but if
more places in the Northern Quarter hop aboard this pie train there
won’t be much variation. There is a really good article from the Telegraph
from January 2008, charting the success of this small company from
touting their wares at Glastonbury to supplying pubs and cafes all over
the UK. Like any forward-thinking food company, they use only quality
ingredients such as free-range meat and no hydrogenated fats.

Their combination of a caring approach to their food, good marketing and branding and gastro pub-style fillings have made a great company. The thick flaky pastry tastes homemade (mainly because it is) and goes hand in hand with unique fillings such as Thai chook pie, Wild mushroom and asparagus pie, Matador pie and Mr Porky pie.

The Thai chook pie (£4) I scoffed at Nexus was a lovely creamy blend of free range British chicken, green Thai curry, sweet potato and lime and a perfect filling for a good stout pastry receptacle. All the unusual fillings just bring the good solid pie up to date with our modern eating tastes. A side order of mash is £1, and gravy 50p in Nexus. Shame it brings it up to £5.50 for all three, I’d chuck the gravy in for free, I think.

Nexus is a basement cafe is on Dale Street right next to a shop called Junk. It is funded by the Methodist Church and works with Sanctus1 which is a city centre church funded by the Church of England – but do not let that put you off, non-religious people. The art cafe is a not-for-profit organisation serving fair trade goods and says it works towards “building community and celebrating creativity in the Northern Quarter’ which should, of course, be applauded.

The whole menu looks great, and is enough to induce changing of mind several times. My friend ordered the sausage sandwich, which came with feta cheese, sunny dried tomatoes, wholegrain mustard, served on granary for £3.60. This is a seriously pimped-up sausage buttie.

On another visit, I tried the Tuna mix up (£3.40), which was another genuis sandwich combination where the tuna was mixed up with feta cheese, chunky olives, onion and mayo, and served on warm granary bread.

They also offer free wi-fi, a selection of newspapers as well as home baked cakes and TeaPigs tea, so pay them a visit. Oh and last time I popped in there was an art event called 40 days of Public Solitude where a bloke was sitting in the window bit when you walk down the stairs. Quite odd, but interesting all the same.

MORE INFO

See also the Mancubist blog for more information on Nexus.

Nexus Art Cafe, Dale Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester, M1 1JW.
Open 10am to 7pm every day of the week.
E: info@nexusartcafe.com

W: www.nexusonline.org.uk

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When I lived in the splendour of Heaton Moor, the Town cafe staff had a reputation for being a bit surly, and I’ve walked out of there before through lack of being served. However, I think the Town cafe now has new owners. Today we did have to wait some time before getting our lunch order in, but there was only two waitresses on and they were very lovely, if very busy.

It’s quite a small venue, but I believe there is an upstairs for functions. I also noticed that on the back of the toilet door, they had put on a party bus to Sankeys at 11pm on Saturday night. This is quite a good way of making the most of people who have got wrecked throughout the night, don’t want to go home, and suddenly find there’s a bus to take them to a club. Liking the entreprenurial spirit.

They currently have an offer on, which is something like £10 for two courses, but the Town Cafe doesn’t appear to have a website so I can’t check that. How can a business, especially a bar, not have a website these days? Impossible but true. I also noticed they had a two for one offer on cocktails on Thursdays, so that is marked in my mental diary to test out asap.

Having been dragged out of bed to ferry myself to B&Q, my chauffeur friend went for the vegetarian breakfast, which is £5 on Saturdays and Sundays. Bargain indeed. Everything was nicely cooked and good quality ingrediants for the price. I had a soup and a sandwich deal for £5.95, which again used really good ingrediants: beautiful thick granary bread and a nice mixed leaf salad with dressing. The filling of melted mozzerella, ham and tomato was tasty, but I was disappointed by the ham, which looked like it had just come out of a packet from Asda. My potato and leek soup, however, could not be faulted. It’s an easy soup to make, but this one was thick, full of flavour and very filling. Top marks here.

I could have lingered throughout the afternoon, ordering cake and more cups of tea, reading the Sunday papers, but a kitchen that needed painting beckoned me home. The Town cafe is a great place to drop into at the weekends for lunch. It gets really busy on the weekend evenings, as do all the bars in Heaton Moor, which is what makes it a great place to go out. It’s very cosy, cool and good value for money.

Town Cafe, 60 Heaton Moor Road, Heaton Moor, Stockport, SK4 4NZ.

Tel: 0161 431 8110‎

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