Hale Barns, Fish & Seafood Restaurant Guide

“This excellent small restaurant is not to be missed” – “a gem hidden in plain sight on Great Ancoats Street”. “The menu changes frequently and is driven by seasonal locally sourced produce and the passions of Kevin and Rachel Choudhary”. “It’s a relaxing space, an oasis full of potted plants and herbs, where conversation is easy, portions are generous, and dishes combine traditional ideas and concepts with innovative contemporary additions”.

2021 Review: A “new restaurant serving ultra-fresh fish from Fleetwood” (but also Shetland scallops, Irish sea trout and Cornish monkfish), set up by fishmonger Jamie Barrett, who owns the Marple Fish shop round the corner. A former car spares shop, it's now a hybrid country-pub and beach shack, style-wise.

“A pub that can serve ultra-fresh, skillfully cooked seafood is a rare treat” – “this country inn in the hills above Macclesfield” has a “light and comfortable small dining room adjacent to the old bar”. It enjoys “strong support from the village”, which clubbed together 20 years ago to buy the freehold when the pub was threatened with closure.

A “great, popular local fish restaurant” where the “brilliant” and “affordable” catch often comes chargrilled, or with influences from other seafood-loving nations (“favourites include the Thai curry prawn dish”); the “recent addition of outside covered tables” is an added boon. After six years in the game, a much-touted sibling in Sale’s foodie-oriented Stanley Square development was due to launch in summer 2023.

Open from mid-October 2023 (after we go to press), this new 200-cover outpost of Richard Caring’s showy and luxurious fish and seafood brand has been a long time in the making. At the gateway to Spinningfields where the Armani Emporium used to be, it is set to feature fish tanks; a bar made of glowing pink onyx and glass; and a water-feature (or ‘cascading waterfall’ as the press release prefers to call it). Will Finchley-born Caring find a new spiritual home amidst Manc’s bevvy of star footie players and WAGs ?