Erst

Reopened in January 2025 after a seasonal refit that brought an extension to the kitchen and a revamped bar area, Erst retains its industrial-chic styling – and still fits seamlessly into the regenerated Ancoats district as a reliable and often inspiring local resource. Patrick Withington is a confirmed exponent of the small-plates approach, and much of what the kitchen turns out is surprising, ingeniously constructed and founded on excellent prime materials. Even the salads score highly for lively mixtures of flavour – witness castelfranco leaves offsetting the creaminess of Corra Linn (a hard sheep's cheese from Lanarkshire), with pear and walnuts in support. The flatbread that arrives well lubricated with beef fat and scattered with flakes of dried Turkish urfa chilli fully deserves the legendary status it has acquired. Tema artichoke with fermented celeriac in barigoule broth showed a delicate approach to winter warming at our visit, while the skewered lamb coated in ras el hanout butter (another established favourite) was as spicily and fragrantly satisfying as ever. By contrast, skate wing in sherry seemed a clash of mistimed elements, but a dessert of olive-oil cake with ricotta ice cream and candied citron is still a good bet for those who have wearied of salty caramel. Natural wines are the hot ticket among the drinks, and it's worth gleaning some advice from your server about what goes best with what. Before you get embroiled, though, consider the house aperitif, which might involve celery liqueur and apple shrub in a productive liaison with gin and house vermouth.

Erst might just be the perfect neighbourhood spot. Set within a redeveloped warehouse building in Manchester’s buzzy Ancoats, the restaurant and wine bar offers a tiny but regularly-changing menu of Mediterranean dishes designed to share alongside an exclusively natural wine list. While that might not sound ground-breaking, co-founders Patrick Withington and Will Sutton possess an eye for detail that’s rare for a low-key ‘local’ place. Overseeing the kitchen and front of house respectively, the pair deliver a laid back yet grown-up experience that’s an antidote to the glitzier ‘going out out’ restaurant scene for which Manchester is traditionally known. Erst’s down-to-earth, egalitarian approach is down in no small parts to its owners’ backgrounds. Neither have ever worked anywhere approaching fancy and freely admit they don’t feel particularly comfortable in tasting menu places. “We want it to be accessible. The food cultures that inspire our menu tend to be more democratic. In Spain, they have cafés that serve great local seafood that are frequented by painter and decorators. You don’t get that here,” says Withington, whose colourful dishes pop against Erst’s brutalist, polished-concrete interior. Sutton’s well-judged wine choices, meanwhile, also bring a welcome splash of sunshine to the proceedings. Manchester’s dining scene has come on leaps and bounds in the past few years with restaurants that more than hold their own against those in the capital. Now you can add natural wine bars to that list.