This & That

This & That is Manchester in a takeaway container. Tucked away on Soap Street in the Northern Quarter, this tiny curry house has been serving rice and three since the 1980s and absolutely nothing about it has changed – which is exactly the point. You walk in, point at three curries from the bain-marie, get a heap of rice, and pay about six quid. That’s it. No menu, no fuss, no Instagram lighting. Just honest, home-style Kashmiri cooking that’s kept generations of Manchester workers, students, and everyone in between fed and happy.

The curries rotate daily but the keema is always there and it’s always brilliant. The daal is thick and comforting, the chicken curry has that deep, slow-cooked flavour, and the portions are genuinely enormous for the price. Seating is basic – a few tables downstairs, a few more up – and it gets rammed at lunchtime for good reason. This & That isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is: affordable, delicious, unpretentious food from people who’ve been doing it for over forty years. Essential Manchester.