Unit 3 Mirabel St, Manchester M3 1PJ
VEGAN OPTIONS: Not listed on menu, check with server.
CUISINE: Continental pasta: Russian, Polish, Italian, Japanese.
ATMOSPHERE: Casual, relaxed, lunchtime, after work.
PRICE: £ (very cheap)
I would like to start by saying that I love this restaurant. I love the service. I love the food. I love the effort it takes to discover. I love the name. The archway in which The Spärrows is built was only very recently converted and opened as a restaurant, but the knowledge of the staff members is so comprehensive that they could have been serving the food and drinks on offer for a lifetime. It is palpable that a lot of care and understanding goes into what the team of two working in the restaurant do. This attention to detail can be enjoyed in the understated food and the exquisite selection of drinks on offer.
Mirabel Street, where The Spärrows is located, is unmanicured and presently accessible only by a lighting shop’s car park, though despite the drab location it keeps some good company with Umezushi right across the road. Walking through the sliding doors into the restaurant the décor is minimal, functional and tasteful overall. It isn’t the type of place you’d go for a fine dining experience, but it makes a perfect venue for a relaxing evening meal or weekend lunch. The intimate room is set up during my visit with a communal table for 6 diners, along with a few smaller covers for the unbooked waifs and strays like myself who walk in for an unexpected treat. There is a very convivial atmosphere within these four not-quite-walls.
Vegan options on the menu are slim, plenty of ovo-lacto vegetarian options are available, along with a few meat dishes. I was helpfully informed that as a vegan diner I could order focaccia straight out of the oven (£2.50), along with sauerkraut and mushroom pierogi (£6.50), a variety of salads (£2-3) and an extra serving of sauerkraut as it comes (£3). My server filled me in on details about the drinks on the menu, brought out a plentiful bottle of water for the table and promised that more vegan options were on their way as the seasonal menus change – when Beetroot’s time in the sun comes, the menu will be a real treat for herbivores, I hear. I order focaccia, the perogies and a Swiss lager that I’ve never seen in England before.
It is the small and unassuming details that count in the food of The Spärrows. The focaccia looks like it was transported from Italy. The salt is right and so is the rosemary. The balance of oil, yeast and wheat is spot on, with no competition between the flavours and no flaws in the texture; best of all the bread is served warm from the oven. There is good oil. There is good balsamic vinegar. It’s gone as quickly as it was served to my table.
The dish of pierogies is again exceedingly simple, but with touches that elevate: not merely in the fermented depth of the sauerkraut, but in the mushrooms which are tangled in the flavour of the cabbage to provide squalls of earthiness through the sharper core taste. The sauerkraut and mushroom pierogi has more of a breathy lushness than many of the ridged and fast smacking flavours in the ubiquitous junk food style sauerkrauts elsewhere in Manchester’s restaurants. I should do the dish the same modest justice and just say this: delicious.
Between courses and after the meal I chat to the host, Kasia Hitchcock, about her passions for animal conservation and fine Japanese spirits (a professional endeavour of her’s). Before the bill I’m served a digestif of Shiratama Umeshu – a Japanese plum wine blended with brandy, which really rounds off the whole meal perfectly. The moment it is poured there is another whiff of sweet and understated elegance in the air. These people know their stuff.
The restaurant delivers an awful lot for not very much money. Even as a vegan diner with so few options to choose from on the menu, I left feeling warm, welcomed and wanting to return for more. Long may The Spärrow fly.
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/sparrows_mcr/
NEW VEGAN ORDER 