The team behind independently owned café and bakery Blanchflower has opened a new site on Wilbraham Road in Chorlton. Little Blanchflower is the third venue from the Blanchflower group which has popular cafes in Altrincham and Sale.
Little Blanchflower opened at 12pm today (Friday 24th March) at the site formerly occupied by Campagna at The Creameries, owned by chef Mary Ellen McTague, which closed in 2022. The new neighbourhood bakery and canteen will be a modern all day cafe serving breakfast and restaurant-style food.
Morning service will begin with coffee and a counter ‘piled high with freshly baked Viennoiserie’ along with a breakfast and brunch menu. Lunch dishes include freshly made pasta including house rolled and filled tortellini, agnolotti and ravioli. Everything possible will be made in-house including salads, focaccia sandwiches and Roman-style pizzas.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, Little Blanchflower will open later for dinner, drinks and nibbles.
The original Blanchflower was opened by head baker Claire Howells and her husband Phil in 2017 adjacent to Altricham market. Since then, the menu has evolved in a few different directions but the ethos has always been the same – simple dishes, amazing flavours and an ingredient list you can count on one hand.
“We feel that our ten years of sourdough bakery experience means we can create something genuinely different and excellent,” explains Claire. “There is a whole world of pizza that is hardly touched in the UK and so many combinations of flour and starters that can elevate the dough to another level. Using more whole grain flour, long fermentations and longer cooking times provides more flavour and texture and is also much easier on the digestion.”
Executive Chef, Jayne Brady adds, “Our kitchens have always been about combining the skills of our team of chefs with those of the bakery. I am excited about the filled fresh pasta like tortellini, agnolotti and ravioli that will be central to the menu there. We love to elevate the everyday and there’s real beauty in doing simple dishes really well, and that’s what we’ll be doing in Chorlton.”
“We’ve always been in a state of constant evolution,” explains Phil Howells. “We wanted a space where we could move forward again with a fresh mix of products, albeit based on the skill set we have.
“We think reopening the space is important for Chorlton’s dining scene because it’s such a great space. It so stylish and it has one of the loveliest shopfronts in the whole of Manchester.”
Introducing themselves in recent post on Instagram, the Little Blanchflower team said:
“Hi All. We are opening Little Blanchflower on Friday. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to take on The Creameries from our friends Mary-Ellen and Sophie. We know Sophie especially well having worked together for over a year at Caffeine and Co in Longford Park and we saw The Creameries being born. It’s a beautiful space with perhaps the loveliest shop front in South Manchester and we hope that we can create a vibrant addition to Chorlton’s food scene within its walls.
This will be our third Blanchflower (the others are In Sale and Alty). Sale also houses our bakery where we make all our sourdough, pastries, cakes, etc, etc. Our vision has always been to pair the bakery with really top-class kitchens and this has evolved into a mix of products that we think is unrivalled and unique. Our places are a remix of café culture; we kept the coffee and cake (or pastry) and the ultra-relaxed, family and dog friendly, visit-anytime vibe of a café and fused it with high-end restaurant food.
We will serve breakfast and lunch on weekdays with all-day brunch at the weekends. With dinner, drinks and snacks on Friday and Saturday evenings. Opening hours will be 9-4.30 Mon-Thurs; 9-10pm Friday and Saturday; 9.30-4.30 Sunday. On Friday and Saturday, service will finish at 3 with dinner starting at 5.30, but we will remain open between these times for drinks, coffee, cake, snacks, etc.
Why the little in Little Blanchflower? In short, because LB will be very similar but also different to its siblings. The size of our new kitchen (it’s smaller) means that we’ve had to make choices about what we can and can’t do successfully. In short, brunch will be very similar and lunch will be quite different. We will be using our bread in different ways and making fresh pasta daily, and this will flip into dinner at the weekends. Our weekly specials have always been a space for the chefs to show off their creativity and this will expand in Chorlton with the extra freedom that evening service allows us.”
Little Blanchflower Chorlton will be a welcome addition to Wilbraham Road’s dining scene, just a few minutes from the Metrolink stop.
Little Blanchflower, 406 Wilbraham Rd, Manchester M21 0SD
Follow @little_blanchflower on instagram
