Two new Manchester restaurants have been shortlisted for gongs in the annual Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards. Climat and Higher Ground are both on the shortlist for Opening of the Year at the 2023 event.
Climat opened last November in Blackfriars House at the top of Deansgate, with a host of local and national reviews following. With views across the city and a huge outside terrace, it is the latest project from the team behind Covino in Chester, which is named in the Michelin Guide.
The restaurant boasts an enviable wine list featuring over 250 bottles at any one time, and sharing dishes from Luke Richardson and Simon Ulph, as well as its signature daily-changing vol-au-vent snacks.
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Meanwhile, Higher Ground opened earlier this year, a project which had just launched as the pandemic closed the UK’s restaurants.
However, founders Joe Otway, Richard Cossins and Daniel Craig Martin - who met while working at the Michelin starred Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant in New York - instead launched the wine bar Flawd on Islington Marina, using produce from their own market garden called Cinderwood near Nantwich.
It then secured premises on the edge of Chinatown to revive Higher Ground at the end of 2022, before opening its doors in February.
Focusing on seasonal produce from Cinderwood and meat from ethical producers like Jane’s Farm, also in Nantwich, the restaurant has gone from strength to strength.
This year’s Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards, where the UK’s top 100 restaurants will also be revealed, will take place at the Hurlingham Club in London on June 12.
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