The story behind Northern Spice Room

Yusuf Khan can still close a takeaway in the dark. He prefers not to. Northern Spice Room is his argument that Pakistani grilling in Manchester deserves a dining room, a pickle tray and a Tuesday nihari that is not on the printed menu.

His parents ran a counter that fed taxi drivers at 2am. He worked there through school, then through other people’s restaurants, then through a pandemic that nearly ended the family shop.

The new room is in the Northern Quarter because that is where people already wander looking for dinner. The recipes did not move; the lighting did.

“I am not here to make it milder,” he says. “I am here to make it properly, and to still be standing at eleven.”