We try out the Yorkshire supper club which is the hottest foodie ticket in town

It went online and sold out in 37 minutes, faster than tickets to Glasto – to say they were surprised is an understatement. They hoped a handful of folk might fetch up; in fact they could have filled the room twice over.

Many of you will have been to the Moorcock, but for the uninitiated, it was a sturdy old moorland boozer above Sowerby Bridge, where the food was extraordinary.

I’ve been round the block a time or two but never encountered anything like it: stir-fried sprouting broccoli and Zebrune shallots, fried garlic seeds, homemade saki and miso sauce; ‘next level prawn toast’ was a slice of sourdough with a layer of wolf-fish mousse and bay scallops topped with poppy seed and quinoa crumb, drizzled with Norland honey infused with chilli, and for afters a rowan bud ice cream sandwich.

Aimee and her partner Alisdair Brooke-Taylor built a business from nothing and people came from miles around. It was soon a hot ticket, with Guardian reviewer Jay Rayner proclaiming it ‘head-spinningly good’ and for the Sunday Times, Marina O’Loughlin raved ‘Through the door to the restaurant lies a foodie’s Narnia’.

Brooke-Taylor and Turford had worked together in Australia, then at Belgium’s Michelin-starred restaurant In De Wulf, and in a short time they had a very successful business on their hands with their ‘forage and ferment, cure and preserve’ ethos; after five years they shut up shop for a number of reasons – Alisdair returning to his adopted Australia and Aimee pursuing her passion as a sommelier.

Following her certification as a sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers in January 2015, she was included in Code Hospitality’s 100 most influential women in hospitality in 2022 – a huge achievement.

McManus began his cooking career as a post-graduate working in a local pub in Rochdale in the summer holidays; after graduation and a Masters in Research Biochemistry he worked under the influential tutelage of Richard Carver at Honest Crust in Manchester before moving on to Altrincham and Little Window ‘not so much a pizza place, more like Polpo’.

During lockdown he made and sold pies out of his flat in Chorlton – he’s nothing if not resourceful – before eventually posting the letter to Brooke-Taylor that he’d written months ago and put off sending – asking for a job. Bingo! He started as a Chef de Partie before Brooke-Taylor spotted his preternatural talent and before you can say kitchen knife he was promoted to sous chef.

“It was a baptism of fire, a very steep learning curve,” he says of working with ABT, “but I learned all my core skills from him: how to achieve intensity of flavours, working with foraged and unusual ingredients and pairings.”

He’d just hit his stride when they closed, but he linked up with Anello in Slaithwaite, popping in on occasions and cooking up a storm, supplementing their pizza menu with the likes of octopus, fermented tomato with house miso dressing, lovage and fennel pollen from the kitchen garden, at the same time operating as a sort of freelance chef as Slapdash Food, connecting with Zapato brewers just along the Colne Valley and hosting BBQs with Anello.

Tonight in Hebden Bridge Thomas and Aimee come together to bring us a menu that has us on pins. The room is thrumming with anticipation; chatter, glasses clinking, serving staff poised; I don’t even mind being on a shared table.

First up, something described simply as rye focaccia, alliums, butter. Like all his dishes, there’s much more going on than the three or four words that describe them.

The pillowy bread is leavened with an overnight rye with confit garlic and its oil, the new season onions, soft and silky are braised in brown butter and pickled ransom capers add a subtle punch. It’s a simple dish, with outstanding flavours, and given an extra lift paired with a creamy Westmalle Tripel Trappist beer.

Next, a gorgeous tiny tart filled with roasted almond butter, whipped ricotta and topped with coppa ham and herbs – a pretty, summery thing. This comes with a lively Spanish white wine, Celler Credo Miranius, and I’m transported briefly to a kerbside café in Majorca.

Then my dish of the day. It looks unremarkable – basically beetroot with cream and something that looks like snow on top. I break the fourth wall and interrogate McManus. The cream is warmed through with phytoplankton (which explains why it tastes of the sea).

The sweet beets are marinated in sherry vinegar and miso. The granita is frozen salted yuzu, sugar syrup and lemon verbena leaves. That’s me told.

The wine, a blend of Gruner Vetliner with a dash of sake could not be a better accompaniment.

McManus’s beloved BBQ makes an appearance – today it’s pork neck and the taste and the tenderness has us nodding with pleasure. It’s served with a sauce of reduced fermented strawberry, anchovies and a salad of tomato, strawberry and puffed grains; Aimee cracks open a peppery, smoky red, Nerello Mascalese and again has judged it perfectly.

The glorious dessert is poached peaches with ice cream infused with fig leaves, paired with a sweet sparkling rose. We’ve had a great time, sitting with strangers who by the end of the meal have become friends, united by great food and wine.

McManus is a gifted, instinctive chef, and I can’t help thinking that his science degree has had some bearing on his understanding of the process – but it’s not Heston weirdness, it’s genuinely wonderful, and along with Aimee’s deep understanding of wine and beer it really doesn’t get much better than this.

To find out where and when they’re holding their next supper club, sign up at www.curvewine.co.uk and get a wiggle on! Five courses with drinks flight around £80 per person.

Welcome 5/5

Food 5/5

Drinks choice 5/5

Prices 5/5