The traditional hotpot dining experience has become one of East Asia’s best-loved culinary exports around the world, and a number of renowned restaurants around Manchester offer the perfect introduction to the timeless, communal gastronomic adventure.
Grab your mates and gather round a rich, roiling broth at the centre of your table, select your dipping sauces then choose from a sumptuous array of raw meat, seafood and vegetables to cook yourself, with dishes ranging from high-grade oysters and wagyu beef strips to esoteric regional delicacies like duck blood tofu, goose intestines and scalded aorta.
Located in the Quadrangle off Oxford Road, renowned hotpot favourite No.8 brings the soul of Sichuan to Manchester with a choice of several umami-packed soup bases and an endless menu of meats, seafood and vegetables, from chicken feet and cuttlefish to goose intestines and Japanese A5 wagyu.
Winner of Oriental Restaurant of the Year at the 2019 Manchester Awards, One Plus reimagines the traditional hot pot format with individual broth bowls set before a conveyor belt. Simply choose your soup, add a dipping sauce and pick up any dish you like to cook yourself, with every plate helpfully colour-coded by price.
From Shenzhen to the city centre, Azuma embodies the best of Manchester’s ongoing East Asian restaurant renaissance, delivering a steady supply of fresh, raw meats to tables with delicious simmering soup at their centre, as well as hot plates for BBQ buffets, starting at just £22.
Alongside an enormous selection of table BBQ dishes, rich noodle soups and sticky rice bowls, Stockport’s favourite Korean joint serves a choice of two hot pot specials starting from £39.90. Try the wickedly spicy budae-chige-jerngol – assorted ham, sausage, kimchi, tofu, rice cake and vermicelli – or swap out the meat and kimchi for thinly sliced seasoned beef, mushrooms and vegetables with the sogogi-beosos-jerngol.
Billed as ‘the top hotpot in the UK’ while promising ‘wonderful physical and mental experiences’ during your visit, XiongQi serves a pair of gargantuan Chinese hotpot platters featuring a choice of soup bases, mountains of fresh meat, handmade noodles and accompanying sauces. If you’d prefer to dive headlong into an authentic Chengdu hotpot adventure, you can select a soup base and order individual meat and seafood dishes from their sprawling all-day menu.
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Fri 23 Feb 2024
Open since 2011, the wildly popular Princess Street stalwart continues to satisfy Chinatown regulars and hotpot newbies alike with a simple yet supremely flavoursome set of sharing dishes including beef, pork, mixed meat and even octopus, with each option available for £28.