The much-awaited Hello Oriental - which combines an Asian supermarket, bar, restaurant and bakery - will throw open its doors this weekend.
And the Manchester Evening News was given a sneak preview of the swish venue last night (Thursday).
Situated in a three-floor site on the newly minted 'Symphony Park' development on Circle Square, off Oxford Road (two floors of which are underground), the ambitious project has cost £2.5 million.
It’s been put together by property developer Azim Kourah and Ricky Yip, who have been friends since meeting at primary school in Oldham.
“We became best friends from my first day,” Kourah told the Manchester Evening News. “So we’ve been friends for 30 years now.”
Yip grew up in the hospitality and wholesale business, his parents running the Chi Yip cash and carry in Middleton and the Ocean Treasure restaurant above it.
He then went on to run the likes of the Sakana bar on Peter Street and the K2 karaoke bar in Chinatown.
“From the age of 10 or 11, we’d be at the cash and carry, helping stack shelves, playing hide and seek, and later helping out in the supermarket and in the restaurant,” Kourah went on.
“So I was always exposed to Oriental foods that I might not have been exposed to at such an early age through being such good friends with the family.”
The pair have devised all the menus themselves, with help from their executive chef team, and the venue itself is split into three parts.
Hello Bakery takes up the top floor, which will be run by a Hong Kong baker who goes by the name 'Man', and who has more than 30 years of experience.
You can then follow the striking bent plywood ceiling to the next floor down, where there’s a mezzanine restaurant called Rice Paper Pho, which serves Vietnamese salads, noodles and phos.
Then the basement floor is called Downtown Oriental, serving traditional Chinese roasts, dim sum and bao buns, with a cocktail bar hosting live DJs.
The venue has been inspired by operations including hipster hangout 1800 Lucky in Miami, as well as the Bang Bang Oriental foodhall in North London.
“We essentially wanted to open a venue where you can have one experience one day, maybe in the morning for breakfast or coffee,” Kourah went on.
“Then maybe come again another day for lunch, and try the Vietnamese food, and then another day in the evening and enjoy the Chinese street food and cocktails.”
As well as the likes of dim sum dumplings, soft-shell crab and char sui burgers, some of the food also pays homage to the pair’s love of the north.
“The prawn toast we’ve done is more like a prawn toastie, and then the Chip Shop Curry. Every Mancunian knows chip shop curry,” he said.
“Believe it or not, in Chinese restaurants the curries are actually very similar. When we realised that, we thought ‘well, actually Mancunians and traditional Chinese people do like the same things', and here’s a prime example of it.
“Me and Ricky were raised in Manchester, and we don’t want to forget that.”
With the likes of the VITA Living apartment buildings on their doorstep, the venue has an audience right on its doorstep.
“It was one of the reasons for picking the site,” he said.
“Pre-pandemic, footfall on Oxford Road was something like a million people a year, and a lot of those are international students. But we have professional renters nearby too.
“One of the reasons we included the supermarket was to attract people from further afield, from the Northern Quarter, Altrincham, Sale, wherever it might be.
“So we have the people who live around us at the forefront of our minds, but so is everybody else.”
As for the future, they have an eye on potentially rolling out the concept elsewhere, or splitting the three offerings and putting the different restaurants in different locations.
And keeping it in the family, Chi Yip will be the venue’s main wholesaler.
“They have been nothing but supportive,” he said. “And from the off, they thought we were onto something good.”
Hello Oriental opens from 10am on Saturday morning, closing at 11pm every day.
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