Six By Nico Manchester

There’s a lot of love for Six By Nico over at CT Towers. A six-course tasting menu for less – much less – than you’d pay over at one of the more fusty fine dining restaurants? Sign us up. 

The menu rotates every six weeks (the sleuths among you might have worked out the head chef’s name is, yes, Nico, congratulations) and from now to September 1st we’re diving head first into guilty pleasures. 

That means cheeseburgers, fried chicken and fish finger butties – no joke. But, of course, these aren’t the kind that mere mortals like you and I scoff hunched over the sink to save on washing up, these are illicit snacks touched by magic. 

It wouldn’t be right to spoiler the entire menu, so let’s pick a few highlights out of a line-up of wall-to-wall highlights. 

First off, it’s worth paying a little bit extra for the snacks. The cheesy beano croquettes sound sloppy, but they’re anything but – they’re golden brown snacks, piping hot and crunchy, packed with scamorza mozzarella, brushed with Hendersons Relish, plus a delightful little dollop of roasted tomato ketchup on the side for dipping. (As Peter Kay probably once said, remember Ketchips? These are like God’s own Ketchips.)

Then there’s the breakfast muffin, traditionally a cheap and cheerful hangover cure, here elevated into fine art. There’s some aged cheddar, truffle emulsion and egg yolk jam, but the focus is all on that unforgettable salsiccia bon bon. It’s the meatiest thing imaginable, salty, dark, earthy and utterly wonderful. 

Course three is an interesting one. Here you get to choose between ‘cheeseburger’ (essentially beef tartare with a tangy sauce and some pickle-related accoutrements) or ‘mac & cheese’. 

The latter is a bit more true to its namesake: a cuboid of silky mac & cheese with a crisped-up paper-thin outside layer, plus some light and breezy cauliflower couscous and cartoonlike blobs of jalapeno gherkin ketchup. Most of Nico’s dishes are full of out-there ideas, but this is one of the best, in both looks and taste. 

That’s not to do down the cheeseburger. The quality of the beef is sky-high and it’s unlikely anyone one on Earth has ever before paired tartare with Big Mac-style extras. It’s a gratifying dish and laugh-out-loud funny – what more can you ask for? 

The much-hyped fried chicken lives up to expectations and then some. It’s a colourful combination of shapes, tastes and textures, all built around outrageously flavoursome chicken thigh, with dashes of black garlic, charred corn and baked celeriac. If there’s ever a One By Nico spin-off restaurant, this is the one I’m going for. 

The principle behind Six By Nico is admirable – opening up access to high-end cuisine to the young and hard-up –  but when the food is as good as this, it deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. If you’re open-minded and like your food to be both dazzling and delicious, Six By Nico’s Guilty Pleasures menu is the one.