Ambitious former pop-up Manchester restaurant Higher Ground opens tomorrow in a permanent site in the city’s Chinatown, from the team behind Ancoats natural wine bar Flawd.

Joe Otway, Daniel Craig Martin and Richard Cossins (left to right in photo) have been working together for three years, although their progress was diverted by the pandemic. The trio met while working at upstate New York’s pioneering farm and restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and between them have CVs which encompass Noma and Relae in Copenhagen along with Simon Rogan’s Roganic and Fera and Stockport’s Where the Light Gets In.

Their original Higher Ground pop-up was cut short by the arrival of covid, so they invested their time in establishing Cinderwood regenerative farm in Nantwich, Cheshire before opening Flawd, where they have won accolades for top-quality food despite lacking a fully equipped kitchen.

The new 50-cover restaurant is on a prominent Chinatown site on the corner of Faulkner and New York Streets, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a central island.

Daniel says: “It’s not where many people would think of putting a new wave ambitious restaurant, but that’s part of the reason we took it – we want to break the mould.”

Richard adds: “Now that we will have a full-scale kitchen to work with, we’re eager to further our existing relationships with the many local producers and farms here in the Northwest. We should hit the very beginning of spring when the restaurant opens – from a produce perspective it couldn’t be more exciting.”

There is a chef’s choice menu at £45 a head, or customers can order from a menu with dishes ranging from £5 up to £25 for acorn-fed pig belly with grain and mushroom porridge.