Interviews

Catching up with Cibus: the North West’s Best Local Restaurant 2024
Published 28 October 2024

We caught up with Cibus, the North West's Best Local Restaurant 2024.

You are the North West’s Best Local Restaurant, but where’s your favourite local restaurant?

Bar San Juan in Chorlton.

Bar San Juan in Chorlton.


How did you celebrate your win?

We planned our holiday closure and therefore enjoyed the time with our families.


If money were no object, where would you book a table?

L'Enclume

Noma

La Terrazza Gualtiero Marchesi

La Terrazza Gualtiero Marchesi


Where is your favourite cheap eat?

Lahori Grill or any of the many curry houses on Stockport Road. Although, we do love fried chicken strips with spicy mayo after a busy service with a few beers to celebrate the good work...


If you came in to eat at your own restaurant, what would you order?

I'm a 'buona forchetta' (good fork) as we say in Italy! I love to taste as much as possible of the menu when I eat out to see quality and the traditionality of the cuisine I'm eating. So in Cibus I would order a selection of cicchetti, perhaps the braised pork cheeks in tomato and red wine, the fregola and clams, bagna cauda with grilled peppers , salt cod fritters and a burrata. I'd also have some salted doughnuts to complement the initial starters. I'm not so greedy so I would have to share the lot with family and friends! Then, I'd share a pappardelle duck ragu, spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino and a pizza margherita with some cetara anchovies, with a side of tomato and shallots salad. A sgroppino of lemon sorbet and limoncello will clean my palate and set me for coffe and grappa. On Sundays, the porchetta roast would be my favorite.


Tell us something people don’t know about your restaurant.

Maybe that Cibus means food in Latin, that we are humble cooks and humble servers of what we love to create and share. Also that our first dough mixer was a plastic bucket bought at a pound shop, powered by Marco and Giorgio's elbow grease.


What is your go to post-service treat?

Station Hop, Overdraught, The Talleyrand, Station South and then home sweet home.

Catching up with Cibus: the North West's Best Local Restaurant 2024