High Lane Restaurant Guide

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.

2021 Review: “All the Cambodian food is tasty and authentic”, and for lunch they serve “flavoursome” soups, filled baguettes and noodle dishes at this “small and cramped” operation – which (with its spin-offs) is quite possibly the only restaurant of its type in northern England. In the basement they buy and sell second-hand vinyl – hence the name. Branches have now opened in Altrincham and, most recently, Stockport market.

“The landlord is the chef and he knows how to cook fish, which he sources from the best suppliers”, say regulars at this unusual and “delightful” Peak District village pub which is “supported by the community” – having bought the freehold 20 years ago when the venue faced closure. “Good ales” completes the picture.

2022 Review: Patrick Hannity's decade-old spin-off from his Manchester original is less well known than its progenitor but is “usually excellent”, too; the food is “light, balanced and filled with flavour”, incorporating produce from his Peak District farm.

“Scandi, seasonal, local foraging vibes; small plates, fermentation and natural wines… all may be ten-a-penny in London, not so much in Stockport”, which has helped win massive ongoing acclaim for Sam Buckley’s hipster outpost, whose launch eight years ago has helped put the seal on the area’s emerging reputation as a haven of cool North Western vibes. It helps that it occupies a “nice space too” – an airy, brick-walled former coffee warehouse with large windows and high ceilings – in which is presented a no-choice menu for £110 per person (for which you are advised to allow two-three hours). All who report rate it do so extremely highly – its ratings would be even higher were it not for the fact that the volume of feedback we receive in our annual diners’ poll is always much lower than its phenomenal reputation might suggest. From November 2024 to March 2025, Sam and his crew will be aiming to take Manchester by storm with a pop-up ‘Where The Light Gets In: A Play in the City’. Till December 21 2024 this will be at the Altogether Otherwise community centre in Hanover Street – from January 7 2025 at The Bungalow at Kampus, a former security cabin on stilts in Aytoun Street. Whether this is part of a plan to shift longer-term to Manchester city-centre remains to be seen.

2022 Review: Any new project involving Sam ‘Where the Light Gets In’ Buckley is news in these parts, and so it will likely be with this new community bakery, pottery and deli – a forthcoming collaboration with potter Joe Hartley and baker Rosie Wilkes. We are promised buns a-plenty, alongside pies, pizza, artisan pottery… and to cap it off, a sound system playing vinyl.

2023 Review: Rachel Winter Jones and Marc Molé opened this new French spot in a fascinating historic building owned by the local council – built as a Victorian jewellers and clockmakers – in April 2022 (too late to inspire any feedback in our annual diners’ poll). Marc, an architect from Paris, and Rachel, a lawyer with a 20-year career at the World Bank, met on a blind date in a bistro in Paris and here that’s exactly the style of cuisine they are emulating. Open from the morning onwards for coffee and pastries.

Next to the Plaza cinema on the edge of Stockport Old Town, a small independent inspired by regional European cuisines. Chef founders Josh Reed-Cooper ad Mike Thomas were in the launch team at local star Where The Light Gets In, and have worked in some of Manchester’s top kitchens.