Takk Coffee

Takk, an Icelandic inspired coffee shop tucked away on a quiet side street 2 minutes’ walk from Piccadilly Gardens is about as cool as it gets in Manchester. The coffee here is serious business and this is accentuated by a vibe that’s more akin to a library than a buzzing coffee shop. It's the perfect environment to spend some quiet time savouring the best coffee Manchester has to offer.

The only slight downside is that they tend to have a lot of regulars using the shop as an office or place to study during the day (and who could blame them); as a result it can often be a bit of a struggle for a table.
The coffee shop itself is very uncluttered, with carefully collated and extremely tasteful framed throughout by the white walls. The exposed wooden tables, rustic non-matching chairs and old school desk tables all add to what appears relaxed but clearly very deliberate interior style. The pillar cluttered with guady fliers is a real eye-sore and looks completely out of place.

Lunch options are typically sandwich based (options change regularly), with a soup (vegetable and lentil on this occasion) and various cakes available on this particular visit.

I got stuck into two sandwiches this time (shared, I wasn't that greedy) - first up was roast beef, pecorino and sun blush tomato on ciabatta. Packed with a nice thick slide of beef with a hefty wedge of cheese giving the sandwich real bite. 

I only had a bite but the Chorizo, manchego and red pesto was even better, immediately making me wish i'd had one of those instead. Similarly generous with the fillings but that red pesto paste was delicious.

The Ciabatta loaves are sourced from the Barbakan deli in Chorlton and are fantastic, tasting very fresh and resulting in a really substantial sandwich. Plenty of carbs to keep you ticking over until tea.

The poppy seed loaf (also from Barbakan) also caught my eye for dessert and was like the best breakfast pastry I’d never had before. Lovely sweet pastry with a layer of custard and chocolate on the inside and white icing, almonds, glace cherry and walnuts sprinkled on top. 

Whilst the sandwiches and cakes are great as I mentioned they take coffee here very seriously and the black stuff is the real highlight. On this occasion they were serving a Sitio Canaa Brazilian roast from the Barn in Berlin – the best coffee I’ve had so far in Manchester. They regularly have different guest roasts on and i've never had one I didn't enjoy - whoever is doing the sourcing is doing a fantastic job.

£4 for the sandwiches, £2.40 for an excellent coffee and £1.60 for the poppy seed loaf.

I’ll put together a post ranking the coffee shops up here once I’ve visited them all a few more times but as things stand Takk stands head and shoulders above the rest, especially if you can get a precious seat.

Lucha Libre - Manchester

If you've been to our capital in the past few years you're bound to have heard of Wahaca, a chain that specialises in reasonably priced Wagamama quality (take that as you will) Mexican inspired food and has a menu featuring a range of small plates to share as well as larger dishes of Burrito, Tacos, salads and other standard Mexican fare. It was setup by the winner of the first post-Grossman MasterChef and is a resounding success - at the time it was a fresh concept done to a high standard, with a broad imaginative menu and great value for money.

You’ve probably worked out where I’m going with this but Lucha Libre is essentially a reasonably well done carbon copy of this format, I can picture lots of ‘research’ having taken place on the Wahaca website and meetings on the Virgin pendolino up and down the country. It's all fairly blatant, even the menu is set out very similarly. I have mixed feelings around this type of thing but if Wahaca aren't looking to make the move up here any time soon then shame on them and fair play to Lucha for filling a gap that clearly exists. 

I ducked my head in on a Saturday night around 7pm and it was absolutely heaving, with catchy pop indie tunes blaring over the stereo, people 2-3 deep at the bar and with just a 20 minute wait for a table I decided to go for it and get it ticked off the ever growing list. Things got off to a great start with the cocktails - including the comically named Negringo for a starter then on through the Gecko, Classic Margarita and Espresso Jalico. They were all nicely boozy, all very well done classics or imaginative enough twists to be interesting.

Having a list of places to visit as long as my arm I’m often working on the principle that I may as well try and order anything on the menu that sounds interesting as unless somewhere is particularly impressive I may not be heading back for some time and this lead to me going a bit too far here. Having said that, when I asked if we’d ordered too much, the waiter did suggest that we may need a few more sides – I enjoy a challenge as much as the next man but this was a ridiculous amount of food once it all arrived.

Spicy poppers – breaded jalapenos, stuffed with cream cream. I expected the peppers to be fairly bland but they had a decent kick, biting straight into one was a double whammy of melted cheese hotter than the sun with the spicy pepper. Coating was a bit flavourless.

Chilaquiles – tortilla chips smothered in mild salsa roja, melted cheese served with fresh coriander, jalapenos, fried eggs and I had also added chicken as an extra. It all worked together really well, it was good as a sharing plate to pick at during the meal - chicken was a tad dry and some of the tortillas had gone a bit soggy under the weight and juices of all of the toppings so it was inedible without help from a spoon, but overall pretty decent. 

Braised short rib tacos with jalapenos, yogurt slaw and spring onion - these were the special taco of the day and were lovely and light, there'd clearly been special attention paid to these - nice to see a chef grabbing the opportunity to show off some creative flair.

Baja fish burrito – beer battered fish, sweet potato fries, pickled onions, red cabbage and habanero tartar sauce all tightly wrapped. It was just like a stodgy overly-heavy burrito - the habanero tartar sauce was incredible, verging on eye-watering heat but wasn't enough to break up the too similar carby flavours in the rest of the dish.

Rib enchilada – slow cooked bbq rib meat in flour tortillas smothered in cascabel chilli sauce, melted cheese and sour cream. This was only spoilt by the tomato sauce which was very bland, considering the kick to the habanero and jalapeno poppers in the other dishes it seemed a shame not to bring a bit more life to them and expect me to add my own hot sauce. The meat was lathered in so much sauce and cheese that it was lovely and juicy but by now I was stuffed so just picked the meat out and polished that off.

Service was excellent, we were dealt with very quickly and our waiter was chatty, very attentive and kept the water and drinks flowing without having to constantly flag him down. Would I go again? Food was all of a good standard for this type of mini-chain, it just all got a bit heavy after a while - i'd order differently next time and have more of the small tacos. Nothing extra special to go out of your way for but if you have an itch for some Mexican food, fancy somewhere different for cocktails to start a night out or if you’re in the area for a cheap film at the AMC it’s a decent option.