Cottonopolis: Review

I have been to Cottonopolis a few times and the food has always been delicious. Cottonopolis opened in the Northern Quarter at the end of 2015. It is located on the corner of Newton Street and Dale Street and was formerly a tailor’s studio. It is an Asian inspired “eatery” as well as a bar. Its one of those places which sell “tank beer” – a trend which started last few years in Manchester – called Krusovice – delivered weekly from the Czech Republic. These are giant 800+ copper tanks full of beer. Other places in Manchester include Albert’s Schloss and Cooper Hall – to name just a couple.

Most recently I went last week with a group of friends and tried the Summer Set Menu. For £15 you get 4 different “small plates”. One from each different category – Ice, Fire, Steam, Oil. There were 3 different items in each category and with 4 of us in the group, we tried every single item – plus duplicates of a few.

You can see from the photos that the food at Cottonopolis are “small plates” – tapas style. It seems to be every new restaurant in Manchester now that sells food “tapas style”. My favs things were ribs, fish collar or the mackerel donburi. I think its really good value for £15. Some dishes better value than others. For example, the dim sum selection is just 3 individual bits of dim sum. But then others like the ribs are more filling. Generally I like this as I like to try lots of different things. Although sometimes you just want a big portion of something! The first time I went was just a quick visit – a drink and bite to eat. The food was all really good but the stand out dish for sure was the belly pork. Wow!! Highly recommended.

Here is the Summer Set Menu:

I almost forgot. We also had dessert. This was not included in the £15 set menu. There were 4 different desserts, 4 of us so we got them all and shared. The arctic roll one actually came a bit late as originally they fault it was sold out – but it wasn’t. I liked them all. Since I don’t have a sweet tooth, although the chocolate arctic roll was nice, may be a bit too sweet for me. Would taste really good if eaten with a warm drink! My fav was the gyozas. Usually these are savoury but these were sweet – inside I think was apple. The one in photo on left that looks like a mini dim sum steamer is a cheesecake.

As mentioned, I have been to Cottonopolis a few times. The first time was for a quick bite and I remember the belly pork was the stand out item and was delicious! SO GOOD!! (Although the menu has changed since but so probably no belly pork now). And perhaps unusual, the main thing I remember from the 2nd time going was how good the guacamole was! (Which was on the side of another dish).  Don’t know what they add to the avocado but tastes so good!