Manteca Shoreditch

Unapologetically rich and robustly flavoured, Manteca’s food will leave you feeling relaxed and comforted in a way that only a really hearty meal can.

Nose-to-tail dining here doesn’t skirt around the issue but instead confronts diners with dishes like ‘pig skin ragu’. A bubbly wafer of puffed skin crowns an intoxicatingly silky-smooth sauce below, peppered with little pricks or pork fat and flavoured with Parmesan and aromatic herbs. It doesn’t feel quite fair to enjoy another animal’s skin this much, but we comfort ourselves with the fact that nothing of their life was wasted.

Owner chef Chris Leach is on the pass on our visit and the whole restaurant seems to exude the feeling of a passion project. The atmosphere is cosy and relaxing, and the service is sweet and sincere. Everyone seems invested in giving guests a good time, which from the buzz in the dining room seems a successful venture.

This generosity translates to a menu full of crowd-pleasers like thick-cut fresh focaccia generously drizzled with olive oil, plates of fragrant house-cured salumi and sharing dishes of pasta. The duck ragu is glossy with – presumably – more fat, tossed through with soft shredded meat and topped with the best kind of topping: pangrattato. A simple lemon, butter and pine nut pasta dish adds some much needed lightness while a kale salad is dressed up with enough garlic and cheese to make it feel less than virtuous (ideal). Every billing is interesting and creative without losing the authenticity of signature Italian flavours. 

Regrets from our meal include not being able to try one of everything and our own dining room not possessing the same kind of laidback yet obscenely curated feel that has been cultivated through pink marble tabletops and the buttery leather chairs. The obvious solution we’ve come to accept is that Manteca isn’t a restaurant to be reserved for rainy days, and instead we've added it to our list of firm favourites to enjoy as often as possible and would urge you to do the same.

Having already successfully run a residency in Soho and a previous pop up, chefs Chris Leach (who previously worked at Petersham Nurseries) and David Carter (owner of SMOKESTAK) have brought their winning pasta combinations to the streets of Shoreditch for their first permanent restaurant.

The space is – appropriately for the area – a revamped industrial style building which in its former life was a workshop and factory. Box 9 architects have worked their magic on the interiors and created various seating arrangements via banquettes and bar stools. The central open kitchen is the focal point of the room where you can watch Chris and his team create hand rolled pasta and fire-cooked cuts. Elsewhere there’s a small terrace for al fresco dining and a subterranean hanging room which displays the house-made salumis.

Serving both lunch and dinner, the menu at Manteca begins with snacks like focaccia and sourdough with whipped brown butter or a plate of freshly sliced cold meats like the coppa or a fennel pollen salame. Starters run from Soho favourites such as the pig head fritti through to new plates like a clam flatbread.

Pasta plates include cult-favourite cacio e pepe and Shoreditch specials like fazzoletti, duck ragu and seaweed tagliatelle. Other larger plates come from the oven and are designed to be shared family-style. Think a thick-cut Oxford Sandy and Black pork chop or a whole roasted sea bream.

With a passion for nose to tail cooking, there’s a glass panelled room where the in-house butchery is hung. Careful sourcing ensures a constant supply of the best British ingredients including Credy Carver ducks from Devon, and lamb from Kiloran Buckler’s family farm in the Llanthony Valley, south-east Wales.

Completing things is a concise sweet menu and a carefully curated cocktail list as well as a wine-list that focuses on bottles from Italy, Europe and North America.