The story
Tom Barnes’ first solo restaurant, Skof, opened in Manchester’s NOMA neighbourhood in May 2024. Housed in the historic Hanover building – a former Co-operative Wholesale Society drapery warehouse built in 1904 – the space is designed to be welcoming and unpretentious. There are no tablecloths, no dress codes, just great food in a casual, beautifully designed setting.
The restaurant’s name reflects Tom’s philosophy: skill, excellence, and simplicity. The team prioritises quality over seriousness and enjoyment over fanciness. Within a year of opening, Skof earned a Michelin star, was named Best New Restaurant at the Good Food Guide Awards 2025, and won Newcomer of the Year at the Manchester Food and Drink Awards, where Tom was also awarded Chef of the Year.
Tom Barnes is a proud Northerner, born in Cumbria. His career began as an apprentice at The Lakeside Hotel, then progressed through Michelin-starred kitchens in London, including The Square. He moved to Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume, rising from chef de partie to head chef by 2013, the year the restaurant won its second Michelin star. In 2014, at age 25, Tom won the Roux Scholarship, staging at Hof Van Cleve in Belgium. He later worked at three-Michelin-starred Geranium in Copenhagen before returning to the Lakes as head chef of Rogan & Co, earning its first Michelin star within six months. Tom became Simon Rogan’s executive chef in the North before opening Skof.
Tom’s modern British cooking is rooted in seasonality, locality, and the best possible produce. The team puts together multi-course tasting menus, available in two lengths: a shorter option and a more extensive one. At lunch, a four-course version is offered. Sample dishes include tartlet of chalk stream trout with golden beetroot and pine, steamed West Coast cod with asparagus and smoked eel, and roasted Sladesdown duck with beetroot and cherry. Desserts like compressed Malwina strawberries with jasmine cream and Manchester honey ice cream with floral herbs showcase the kitchen’s precision.
A thoughtfully curated drinks list includes a small but mighty wine selection, cocktails developed with Atelier Pip, a non-alcoholic pairing, and a house beer brewed with local Track brewery.
Skof’s team includes many L’Enclume veterans. Head chef Conor Dalton has spent twelve years in Michelin-starred kitchens. Restaurant manager Sean Oakford worked with Tom at L’Enclume and Rogan & Co. The kitchen also includes Young National Chef of the Year winner Edwin Kuk and head pastry chef Beth Disley Jones. The front-of-house team brings warmth and genuine hospitality, ensuring every guest feels welcome.
Skof is a place where skill and simplicity meet, where the joy of eating well is shared without pretension.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
High quality cooking
Despite the odd spelling, Skof implies a lip-licking, tummy-rubbing sense of enjoyment and a cheerful lack of pretension. Although the mood may be low-key, the food here is anything but casual. Housed in one corner of a Grade II-listed former warehouse, the restaurant combines exposed industrial brickwork, Victorian tiles and polished wooden floors with Japanese zen aesthetics. Having worked closely with Simon Rogan at L'Enclume, Tom Barnes has generated a city-wide buzz with his first stand-alone venture, which has been booked solid since day one. The format is tasting menus: four courses at lunch; 12-15 courses in the evening. Either way, be grateful for comfortable seating on leather banquettes or curved wooden chairs. Along one side are stools where diners are offered a ringside view of the cheffy action – a detail much appreciated by readers. The impeccable choreography behind the pass and out front is seamless. Staff are precisely drilled and well-informed, showing sensitivity to the needs of each diner with infectious enthusiasm. Barrow-born Barnes leavens a certain nostalgia for his Cumbrian home turf with big-city slickness and the (now inevitable) references to east Asian cuisine. His food is complex and intelligent, indulgent but restrained, displaying a confidence to explore textures and tastes with a light touch. The opening salvos (starters, snacks, canapés – call them what you will) arrive in rapid succession but the down-in-one mouthfuls are stellar– Dexter beef bavette with black pepper and Delica pumpkin, for example. Among the larger courses, steamed West Coast cod with whey, tangles of Roscoff onion, slippery pieces of smoked eel and buttermilk seduced with its alabaster presence. The sauce was sharp and tangy enough to counter the smoothness of the fish and other components. Among the desserts, the prettiest that we sampled was apple poached in cranberry, woodruff cream, rose geranium and almond – as fragile as Minton porcelain. But pride of place should go to the super-delicious ‘Barney’s tiramisu’ – the chef's homage to his father’s recipe. He serves it at the table while telling the story himself. You want to hug him. Barnes doesn't drink wine, so his sequence of fruit- and vegetable-based drinks to match each course is a genius idea. A libation of beetroot, blackcurrant, lapsang souchong and cocoa nibs was an extraordinary replica of a powerful red wine to complement a fine piece of roast Sladesdown duck breast, while a blend of fermented gooseberry, tarragon and hops gave a sherbet/yeasty dimension to a dish of caramelised King Edward potato (with Isle of Mull Cheddar, grilled leek and pickled walnuts). There's a conventional wine flight too, culled from a smart list.
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