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BREAKING: Solita Snap Up Aumbry Site
Northern Quarter and Didsbury burger restaurant will open their third site in Prestwich
SOLITA will open their third restaurant in the former Aumbry restaurant site in Prestwich this May.
Confidential hears they're not done there. Sotgiu hopes to open a fourth Solita this year and an entirely new concept altogether this summer.
The award-winning Aumbry restaurant by Great British Menu finalist and Guardian food columnist, Mary Ellen-McTague, closed in September 2014 for a supposed refurbishment.
However, questions about the future of the Prestwich restaurant (which features in 2014's Waitrose Good Food Guide and AA Guide) were raised when workers failed to show and McTague made moves into Manchester city centre with Northern Quarter pop-up restaurant 4244.
Solita will occupy the former-Aumbry in Prestwich
It has now been revealed that Franco Sotgiu, co-owner of Northern Quarter and Didsbury burger restaurant Solita, creator of the renowned 'Big Manc' and all-round Manchester wheeler-dealer, has been lining-up the area in North Manchester for many months.
No surprise here, Prestwich has been gentrifying at pace for some time (see the trendy bricks'n'mortar Cuckoo cafe and Chorlton-esque Village Green community co-op) and is now the default choice for many young white collar-types unable to meet escalating Didsbury/Chorlton property prices. Plus, it's on Franco's drive home.
The third 150-cover Solita restaurant will occupy the Aumbry and neighbouring Bombay restaurant sites on the corner of Bury New Road and Church Lane.
The restaurant will feature an outdoor terrace, central kitchen, butchery and meat maturing room on site. Sotgiu hopes to employ a full-time butcher in the restaurant to prepare steaks, burgers and other grill items for all three Solita sites.
The second Solita opened in Didsbury in September 2014
Big Manc by Solita
Sotgiu said: “Prestwich has been in our sights since early last year when we looked at a pub to convert, but the deal fell through.
"The Bombay gave us an entry to Prestwich but we were always concerned that the site was going to be on the small side for us. The unexpected option to deal on the Aumbry site too has been a welcome bonus. Aumbry is a special place for me as it’s where my wife and I had our wedding breakfast - in fact, we were the first couple to do so there.
"Prestwich is a vibrant and thriving village, and we’re glad to be part of its expansion and regeneration, and hopefully our move there will encourage other operators to invest in the area.”
It's been a busy few months for Sotgiu and business-partner Simon Pogson, who took on the doomed former-Cibo restaurant site on Didsbury's School Lane to open a second 150-cover Solita in September last year.
Confidential hears they're not done there. Sotgiu hopes to open a fourth Solita this year and an entirely new concept altogether this summer.
The new Solita will open at 401 Bury New Road in late-May 2015.
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Do they fancy taking over the now boarded up Millpond in Stalybridge too? Be a great coup to help kickstart a much needed re-regeneration of the town!
So the Taig woman leaves Prestwich because she has delusions of grandeur of operating in town, and the good people of M25 are rewarded with dirty dude food and a side helping of a condescending attitude.
My thoughts exactly. Top notch restaurant replaced with a glorified McDonalds.
I heard she'd left because of the extortionate rent she was being asked for, not because of delusions of grandeur.
Then how come the "boys" at Solita can afford it when they're charging a fiver for a burger, yet she can't when she's charging a hundred quid a head? There's something about this that makes her come across like she's gotten too big for her Manolo Blahniks
More like a tenner for a burger, and they will be doing a lot more covers than Aumbry. Not a very good comparison.
I've been to solita and £5 a burger it aint.
SoLita prices are £10 - £15 for burgers.
Anonymous @ 8.48 am - How many times did you eat at 'the Taig Woman's' restaurant? Your first sentence demonstrates that you are probably not one of her clientele and you'll probably find SoLita too rich for your liking. You inbred, hill billy k***stick
£10-15 for mince in a bun...work out the GP on that. Have been to both places and wouldn't return.
By that I mean Solita NQ and Didsbury....both very disapointing.
There's already a cheap burgerbar in prestwich . We don't need another . Bring back The Bombay always superb food !!!
Solita ain't cheap!
Big high profile restaurant space free in stockton Heath. Needs a big name
Ate at both the Didsbury and NQ Solita's and I still cannot for the life of me understand the success of this place. Their frying machine certainly gets a lt of use that's for sure. Good luck to them though as it is nice to see independents flourish, just wish I enjoyed their food more.
Ate at Solita (NQ) over Christmas. Not my kind of food at all and yet I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very, very good food. Sadly, this was undermined by the worst, uninvolved, ignorant service I've encountered, possibly ever. An awful lot of interest in their mobile phones all round and not a great deal of interest in the diners.
Fair play to Solita. A Manchester success story.
How PRESTWICH has changed....for the best..More of it...
Cheetham Hill village is very vibrant these days with it's coffee shops and supermarkets maybe partly due to nearby Prestwich.
The Chorltonification of Cheetham Hill? I've heard it all now. When there used to be a McDonalds there it was robbed and ram-raided so many times it eventually got turned into a halal greengrocers.
Cheetham Hill is rough as, my family were all from there but moved to South Manchester. The older ones are especially saddened by what's happened to it.
Nest stop Kosher burgers.
I never mentioned Chorlton? BTW Chorlton used to be rough not too long ago. Cheetham Hill Village has thriving Jewish, Asian and Polish communities you can buy interesting food such as Polish dumplings, Sauerkraut etc.
Hence the Chorltonification of Cheetham Hill. It has travelled the same path, I assume is the point he's trying to make
Cheetham's burglary rates are lower than Chorlton's these days
Chorlton was never as bad as Cheetham Hill is now.
Been telling folk for years Prestwich is the DIDSBURY of the north, although way,way better , greener and hillier....We need a few more delis...either regular or kosher....This place looks a young first date night joint (?)
Yea!
Ha as if