Located within Manchester’s new high-end St Michael’s development near Deansgate, the 280-cover restaurant is set to open in June and will mark the first time the group has replicated one of its brands in the UK.
Restaurant last year revealed that the French-based Italian restaurant group had found a site in the development, owned by former Manchester United footballer Gary Neville, for what would be its first restaurant in the north of England.
“We have been looking for quite a while in Manchester,” says Big Mamma Group co-founder Tigrane Seydoux. “The food scene has evolved a lot there in recent years.”
“I met Gary almost two years ago and we get on very well. We are 100% owners of the restaurant and its identity, but it was great to partner with him because he knows the city very well.”
Circolo Popolare Manchester will share similarities with the London original, including having eye-catching bottle walls, but will also have its own personality, according to Seydoux.
The new trattoria will be inspired by the island of Sardinia and will feature festoon lights across a eucalyptus-clad ceiling, and a courtyard floor filled with antique trinkets and a wishing well. It will also have a ceramic staircase leading to a terracotta den with a kitchen counter.
“We are still working on the menu direction for Manchester, but we will not be copying London,” says Seydoux. “Circolo Popolare is a joyful restaurant that has worked very well in London and at some point, we wanted to take the brand to do a new project in the UK.
“The price point is roughly the same and the restaurants will share a common view, but they will be different. We don’t want to fully replicate what we have done in the past.”
Seydoux points to the group’s Circolo Popolare in Madrid, which he says has a grill section serving meat and fish skewers that is not found in the London restaurant.
Circolo Popolare Manchester is Big Mamma Group’s second regional restaurant in the UK and follows on from the launch of La Bellezza in Birmingham at the start of the year. The restaurant is the second La Bellezza in the group’s portfolio, joining a restaurant of the same name in Lille, France.
The group has also pinpointed Gloria as a key brand it plans to bring to new territories. Its flagship restaurant opened in Milan in 2023, with more locations expected to follow. Gloria as a brand is pitched as being a more high-end and luxurious dining experience, while Circolo Popolare is designed as a more lively, communal dining destination.
Big Mamma Group is expected to open a number of new restaurants across the world, including London, in the next 12 months following on from private equity company McWin taking a majority stake in the business to help fund its expansion.
It is understood to be opening a site in London’s Canary Wharf in a former All Bar One site and is also rumoured to be opening in the City, according to website Hot Dinners.
The group is also looking to open a restaurant in the US, with the state of Florida the current front runner, according to Seydoux.
More than half of Big Mamma’s restaurants are bespoke, and Seydoux says that the group will continue to create new restaurant concepts as well as roll out some of its existing brands as part of its expansion plans.