Exchange and smart: the bartenders tackling the restaurant world

If a well-known chef announced they were opening a cocktail bar, either as part of their restaurant or as a separate venture along with an experienced bar team, it would unlikely raise an eyebrow in today’s world. But a successful bartender entering the restaurant world is another matter. Even more so considering the space being taken on was once home to a restaurant from a certain Tom Kerridge, no less.

Yet this is exactly what renowned Manchester-based bartenders Daniel and Joe Schofield have done. The brothers, alongside their long-standing partner and wine expert James Brandwood, recently opened Stock Market Grill in Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel in the space that used to be Kerridge’s Bull & Bear, marking their second venture at the hotel alongside their bar Sterling. But what possessed them to swap Manhattans for mussels and Sazeracs for Sunday roasts?

This is the question I put to Joe Schofield when we meet inside the plush downstairs Sterling bar a few days into the launch of their first restaurant. “I’m very fortunate to have eaten in a lot of great restaurants around the world and there’s not that many that care about the beverage programme outside of the wine programme,” is his response. “We wanted to do something where food and drink are treated equally.”

As one of the UK’s most celebrated bartenders, having been named Bartender’s Bartender at The World’s 50 Best Bars and International Bartender of The Year at the Tales of The Cocktail Spirited Awards - the first person to have won both of the awards - Schofield is no stranger to world of high-end drinks. Previous roles include bartender at The American Bar and Beaufort Bar at The Savoy hotel, but it was his time working with chef Ryan Clift at Singapore restaurant and bar Tippling Club that seemed to have proved most formative. During his time there the duo created their multisensory menu concepts, first a memory triggering aroma-based menu, followed by what is believed to be the world’s first edible cocktail menu in the form of a series of flavoured gummy bears.

“Ryan’s knowledge goes across all categories - wine, spirits, cocktails, coffee, beer,” adds Schofield. “He’s got this wonderfully rounded knowledge base of everything F&B related, which is quite rare, and that’s something that has inspired me.”

Playing the Stock Market

The road to Stock Market Grill​​, from bars to restaurants, might not be well trodden but for the Schofields it is a remarkably short one. While the brothers now oversee four venues, which include their first project, the eponymous Schofield’s Bar, as well as Sterling and ATOMECA in Manchester’s Deansgate Square alongside Brandwood, they have only been running their own businesses since 2021.

“I’m very aware we’ve only been doing this for a handful of years and nothing every pans out how you expect it to, we just believe sometimes these things happen for a reason,” says Schofield of the decision to enter the world of restaurants. “When we heard about Tom [Kerridge] leaving we realised this could be another great opportunity for us. We had a real sense that it felt right for us.”

The Schofields already had a secret weapon in Joshua Reed Cooper, who has worked with Sam Buckley at his Stockport restaurant Where The Light Gets In as well as with Simon Martin at Manchester’s only Michelin-starred restaurant Mana. As group head chef, Reed Cooper was part of the opening team for Sterling and was in charge of the food offering across the bars and the brothers had started to think about how they could further use his talent.

“Josh is one of the best chefs in the city, he’s a real talent. All these things came together. We believe it is one of the best dining rooms in the country and think there’s an opportunity there to create something special.”

Gary Neville, owner of the Stock Exchange Hotel, obviously thought so too. The former Manchester United footballer approached the brothers about opening Sterling at his hotel having been impressed with what he saw at Schofield’s Bar. With Kerridge departing he offered to enter into a partnership with them for the ground floor restaurant space. “Gary has been very supportive of what we do,” says Schofield. “Sterling is an independent venture, but Stock Market Grill is a joint venture.”

Stock Market Grill is also a very different beast to what the team has done before. The 90-cover restaurant is set in a vast, brightly lit, high ceilinged dining room with large marble tables and huge banquette seating, a far cry from the darker and more intimate settings of both Schofield’s Bar and the larger Sterling. To complement the room, the brothers have opted for what they describe as a British and French brasserie that, although different in scale, continues their focus on ‘refined classics’.

“We have tried to create a restaurant serving the food we love. We are all passionate about serving food that when you walk in you don’t know what to order because you want to order everything. We want to create a space people are confident to come in for six oysters and a Guinness or a Sunday roast once a week. It is very accessible. We have made a few cosmetic changes, but we have always loved the banquettes and large tables.”

"It is one of the best dining rooms in the country
and there’s an opportunity there to
create something special”

To this end they have achieved this. Reed Cooper’s menu delivers big-hitting dishes that more than match their surrounds, not least snacks that include a wedge of hand raised pork pie with English mustard and starters of steak tartare with beef fat yolk; and mussel cullen skink with fried bread and lovage.  Mains are equally hearty and include a confit rabbit suet pudding with potato puree; and ex-dairy Fresian ribeye steak with pressed chips and a delightfully indulgent hotpot of Ogleshield cheese and Mangalitsa bacon available as sides. That said, more refined dishes are present to show the breadth of Reed Cooper’s undoubtable ability, such as Montgomery cheddar and anchovy straws; and chicken liver parfait on savoury truffle bread and butter pudding with sauternes jelly. Desserts, meanwhile, include a lemon and brown butter sponge with vanilla custard; and The Macallan whisky baba, the Schofield brothers’ take on the classic French dessert.

Having a focus on food rather than drink has not been without its challenges. “It is very different because [a restaurant] is multi departmental,” says Schofield. “There’s the kitchen, bar, front of house, reservations and restaurants operate on a different timeline to bars. If we wanted to make seven iterations of the same drink, we could do so in 20 minutes; if we wanted to make seven iterations of the same dish it would take a number of days.

“Working in bars you have a repertoire of hundreds and hundreds of drinks that you know a guest will enjoy. A certain amount of brand loyalty also exists with guests which doesn’t exist in terms of produce in a restaurant except for a handful of examples (Exmouth caviar, for one). They are not walking in and calling for a specific type of a produce. You spend more time working with seasonality and different produce where with drinks there’s a certain amount of stability. But we still work with the seasons in terms of what people may want to drink.”

International bar experiences

The Schofield brothers’ ability to know not just what people want to drink, but how they want to drink it and in what type of environment has been the key to their success in Manchester’s already booming bar scene. Their experience in numerous styles of venues across the world - Dan Schofield’s CV includes time a Little Red Door in Paris and assistant bar manager at Coupette in London - has helped them, along with Brandwood, really get under the skin of what makes different bars tick.

“We believe in a number of things in our venues - first and foremost hospitality and engagement is very important,” says Schofield. “Other core pillars are quality product, whether it be food, drink, atmosphere, and ambience. These core pillars are built on our diverse experiences of working in the F&B industry - from five-star hotels to fine dining at Tippling Club, or dive bars and pubs, between the three of us we really do have this unique background.

“We try and find those common threads between all those venues. Why do I like going to that dive bar? For its engagement. Why do I like going to that five-star hotel bar? It’s about product and service. We try and bring all that together. We rely on each other. And another of our philosophies is continuous improvement.”

Before leaving their respective jobs to open Schofield’s Bar the pair also embarked on a tour of venues that saw them work in around 70 countries at 120 different events. “Our eyes were widened by different venues, but we always had this very clear vision about what our bars should be, and that was championing classic cocktails and multiple different types of beverages. We never got on with this idea that people go to a pub for a beer or a wine bar for a glass of wine - why can’t one venue be really proud of everything it serves, be it wine, cocktails or Guinness?”

A challenging birth

Despite their accolades and experience in the bar world, the brothers found breaking ground with their first venue wasn’t as easy as they first thought. Moving back in 2018 to open their first bar together, issues finding a suitable site and then the pandemic hampered their progress early on.

“We’d been talking about opening our own bar together for 10 years. We have both been down a relatively similar path in the F&B industry and we were always very aligned in what we believe a bar should be or what an F&B experience should be and felt this it the right time to make that leap.

“We had a number of landlords who looked at us unfavourably because we didn’t have trading history in the UK. We are very fortunate to have received a lot of recognition for our work in the drinks industry globally but when it comes down to a landlord trying to find a tenant that really doesn’t hold much weight.”

"We always had this very clear
vision about what our bars should be"

But once Schofield’s Bar opened its doors in April 2021 in the impressive art deco building Sunlight House and the brothers showed what they were about the floodgates opened. Six weeks later ATOMECA followed, opening in the new Deansgate Square development, with Brandwood coming on board. Within a few months Neville then invited them to a meeting to see if they would be interested in opening a third space, and Sterling was announced a year later. Now, with Stock Market Grill, the trio have a portfolio of venues that complement each other and make their offer as accessible as possible.

With ATOMECA they have created an all-day European ‘drinkery’ while Schofield’s Bar is described as ‘every day approachable luxury’. Sterling, by contrast, is a more luxurious venue with a more comprehensive drinks list that includes vintage and rare wines and spirits. The aim here is for people to come for an aperitif and then eat dinner at Stock Market Grill and possibly come back down afterwards for a digestif.

With four openings in quick succession, for now at least the trio seem content on focusing on their current portfolio rather than expansion. But a glint in Schofield’s eye means it might be hard to say no if opportunity were to knock again. “There is a real momentum behind the city now with Gordon Ramsay [Lucky Cat], Soho House, and Sexy Fish part of a great new wave of venues openings to add to the existing great set of venues already here. It’s exciting to be part of that.

“Would we do something else? Never say never.”

Brothers in bars – the group’s portfolio

Schofield’s Bar​

Dan and Joe Schofield’s debut joint venture opened in the corner of art deco building Sunlight House, once the tallest building in Manchester, in April 2021. Fine and classic cocktails are the focus, with drinks made using the brothers’ Schofield’s Dry Vermouth, made in collaboration with Asterley Bros.

ATOMECA​

Launched in May 2021, ATOMECA was the first venue to come to Deansgate Square and the first to be run by the Schofield brothers and wine expert James Brandwood. Described as an all-day ‘European drinkery’ the concept was born out of the idea that the pandemic had stopped people travelling to Europe so instead Europe would come to them. The venue serves a tight selection of cocktails alongside a range of coffees and teas and a European wine list as well as a range of European small plates such as habas fritas, Gordal olives, burrata with green pesto, a toastada made with Serrano ham and Manchego, and smashed avocado with pimento.

Sterling​

The most luxurious bar in the portfolio, Sterling has a members club feel to it with parquet floors and deep blue seating as well as a separate wine room. Its wine list is more comprehensive than at its other bars and there’s also a vintage cocktail list with versions of the Daiquiri, Negroni, Old Fashioned, Rob Roy, Vesper, and Vodka Espresso available at £95 each. The venue also hosts live music Thursdays through Saturday. The bar routinely does 300-350 covers on a Saturday night.

Stock Market Grill​

The team’s first foray into the world of restaurants has seen it partner with Gary Neville’s Stock Exchange Hotel. Food at the 90-cover restaurant is overseen by former Where The Light Gets in chef Joshua Reed Cooper.