Spinningfields isn’t short on statement restaurants, so Sticks’n’Sushi feels like a deliberate shift in tone. A pared-back, quietly confident space that leans more Copenhagen than spectacle.
One where the lighting doubles as sculptures, the space tastefully reflects the architecture outside, and music is at an ideal volume for chit chat. Sticks’n’Sushi is a Copenhagen-born restaurant with a handful of carefully chosen locations across the globe, and they are now open in Manchester’s Spinningfields.
The two-storey restaurant accommodates 246 guests across a ground-floor dining area, a mezzanine level, and an expansive L-shaped outdoor terrace, all designed by award-winning Berlin architects Diener & Diener.
You can expect interesting, welcoming colour palettes throughout the restaurant reflective of whatever mood you’re in, from secluded corners to light-drenched banqueting tables.
There are over a dozen in London already, with Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow outposts too. They’ve also got a handful of Berlin sites, as well as plenty scattered across the Danish capital with a Leeds opening planned for later in the year too.
The company was started over 30 years ago by brothers Jens Rahbek Hansen and Kim Rahbek Hansen, along with their brother-in-law, Thor Andersen, and the concept is about blending the brothers’ dual Danish-Japanese heritage. In fact, the whole place is about bringing together opposed but cohesive elements.
For instance, the concept combines both a hot and a cold kitchen – something considered eyebrow-raising in traditional Japanese cooking. Yakitori skewers – cooked on the robata grill – are considered casual bar food, whereas immaculate sushi, perfected over decades, certainly is not.
So alongside an expansive universe of sashimi, nigiri and uramaki, there are loads of snack-sized sizzling skewers of marinated fish, meat and even chicken wings, the latter of which are supposed to be pulled apart by hand and eaten like lollipops.
There are rafts of beef tataki – thin-as-anything slices of raw beef fillet, gently seared and topped with miso and shiitake and truffle ponzu designed to be folded into individual parcels with one effortless chopstick movement.
The sushi ranges from the classic (a sashimi platter laden with identical pieces of tuna and yellowtail kingfish, scallops and a tamago omelette) to the more creatively engineered (wagyu tartare and soft shell crab, for example).
Sticks-wise, there’s everything from a delicate miso cod, to indulgent pieces of wagyu, as well as veggie options like grilled padron pepper and teriyaki sweet potato.
Meanwhile, the cocktail menu features well-executed classics, as well as on-theme signature creations like a whisky sour with miso, or a yuzu seltzer. You can tell there’s a serious amount of attention to detail, as well as an unorthodox playfulness too (see: mushroom croquettes topped with Danish cheese). We very much like their style.
Sticks‘n’Sushi opened on March 30 in Spinningfields Square, Manchester.
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