Manteca is now open in Shoreditch, the third iteration of a restaurant that started at 10 Heddon Street before moving to Soho, and now finally settling here in on Curtain Road. Of all these, the new place is the one that really feels like their home, and despite only being open a couple of weeks, it looks like the team led by David Carter and Chris Leach, have already settled in very nicely.
If you’ve been to Manteca before and loved it then you will definitely be a fan of the Shoreditch restaurant. All the elements are there – the in-house charcuterie, the nose-to-tail menu, and the fresh pasta – and now it’s all wrapped up in a beautiful new space and a bold menu that combines some of their classic dishes with several new ones.
A word of warning though. Don’t do as we did and go overboard with the ordering. This is big hearty cooking with lots of carbs and fats (and all the better for it) but you won’t want to wipe yourself out too early. It’s tough though as it’s one of those menus where you want to order absolutely everything.
There are certain things we can say are unmissable however – the incredible mortadella, made fresh in house by Chris and the team; the crisp, rich pig head fritti; and perhaps one of our favourite dishes of the year, the clam flatbread. Oh and we’d have to add the n’duja mussels to that list too. Manteca’s pastas are also a must order and you’ll really want to get two small plates, one of which should be the tonnarelli with a brown crab cacio e pepe sauce. We also got the fazzoletti, with a beautiful duck ragu and duck fat pangrattao.
We wish we could tell you about the pork chop or the whole wood fire roasted sea bass, or even the chocolate tart we’d been eyeing up all night, but alas we didn’t make it past the pasta course. But we wouldn’t change a thing, as Manteca is a brilliant restaurant, and we now have a cast iron excuse to come back asap and finish the rest of the menu (plus our favourite snacks of course).
49-51 Curtain Rd, London EC2A 3PT
mantecarestaurant.co.uk