Fur Coat, No Knickers: Has Manchester Hospitality Traded Community for Clout?

Somewhere along Peter Street, a server sets a steak ablaze with a blowtorch while three neighbouring tables reach for their phones. Between plush velvet booths, synthetic cherry blossoms and lighting calibrated to a perpetual golden hour, central Manchester’s hospitality scene has become something of a live stage production. It is atmospheric theatre, carefully engineered to make an evening look extraordinary on screen, even as the rain lashes against the windows on Deansgate. But behind the theatrical glow lies a much less glamorous economic reality.