Sometimes a lunchtime meal deal just won’t cut it, but there’s not always enough time to sit and enjoy the full restaurant experience. That’s why Habas, one of Manchester’s most highly esteemed restaurants have come up with a special lunchtime offer – an express version of their full menu at a more accessible daytime price.
Chef Simon Shaw already had two successful restaurants in Manchester before he decided to open Habas: the renowned Spanish restaurant El Gato Negro on King Street and Canto, a Portuguese restaurant in Ancoats. Habas opened in June 2021 during a period when nobody was quite sure if we were in or finally out of lockdown, and for quite some time was hidden behind scaffolding as work continued on the Grade II-listed Manchester Club building.
Despite those early challenges Habas, like its sibling restaurants, was listed the latest MICHELIN Guide Great Britain & Ireland. More recently it scooped the Leading Newcomer in Hospitality award at the This Is Manchester Awards.
Occupying the Manchester Club’s former wine cellar, the modern, 200-cover Middle Eastern bar and restaurant also incorporates a relaxed lounge and a private dining room which can accommodate parties of up to 12 guests.
Head chef Craig Rutherford recently introduced a new autumn/winter menu of large mains dishes and sharing platters to complement the restaurant’s signature mezze plates, it was the £15 lunch offer we were here to try this time.
Available Monday to Friday between 12pm–5pm, guests can build their own lunch of three dishes and choose a drink. Dishes are laid out in simple sections, and you’re asked to choose one dish from each section, so regular diners never run out of new combinations.
Section one is a salad bowl of dressed mixed leaves, or a fresh pitta bread with house slaw, garlic tahini and harissa, or you can choose a Habas hummus bowl with pitta crisps and house slaw. Any of those will form the base or accompaniment to whatever you choose from section two.
We chose honey-marinaded chicken thigh shwarma which came served on the hummus we chose earlier, while spiced braised lamb shoulder marinaded in garlic, chilli and ginger was served inside the fresh pitta bread. It’s a mix and match affair with the other choices being crispy fried halloumi, a spiced lamb merguez sausage burger or the new vegan roast sweetcorn falafel.
The final section represents your carbs and sides. We’d highly recommend Persian-style rice with caramelised onion, crispy shallots, and chilli Batata harra as it’s one of those dishes that is tricky to get exactly right at home. You could also choose braised jasmine rice, or spicy fried potatoes with dill sour cream.
The pitta and rice had taken up our self-imposed carb allowance, so we chose a side of richly spiced aubergine tagine with lemon yogurt, toasted lavosh bread – part vegetable dish, part condiment, fully delicious.
A drink is also included in your £15 deal and that includes a Beirut beer, a glass of red, white or rosé house wine, or a soft drink.
So that’s the set deal, but the lunch menu also comes with a list of hot and cold they suggest you might be interested in adding on, as well as some very tempting desserts – the canny beggars. They managed to twist our arms and we added on a portion of crispy filo cigars stuffed with Sunblush tomato, feta, and spinach (£10) which we used to scoop up the deeply flavoured slow cooked red pepper chutney it came with.
We also found it hard to resist a portion of crispy prawn fritters served with lime and coriander yoghurt (£7.50) I’d love to see representatives from the Middle East and the Far East fight it out in a best bar snacks competition, but I suspect it would be a dead heat.
Those two extra dishes took the room we would have left for desserts which are seasonal, lightly spiced and comforting from warm winter berry babka (£6.50) to crispy fried doughnuts with orange and cardamom (£7).
If you’re all settled after such a feed and have perhaps realised you’re not in such a rush to end your lunch break after all, you’d be welcome to retire to the bar area with a Moroccan mint tea or a liqueur coffee. It turns out Habas is a real oasis away from the bustling city centre up those stairs.
Habas, 43a Brown Street, Manchester, M2 2JJ
