Desert Island Dumplings: Is this Manchester's best vegan restaurant?

Lucy said that she wanted to create vegan dumplings that were more flavourful rather than just a simple veg combination: “I was telling [Robbie] about how my sister used to do deep fried dumplings as a hangover cure and he’d never had them deep fried. But then we were saying it’s a bit rubbish the way veggie dumplings are always just vegetables it’s like mushroom and chive or just a straight up assortment of veg and I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if you could have veggie flavours like cheeseburger? And it was a lightbulb, the next day we had a veggie cheeseburger cook-off.”

The Desert Island Dumplings menu now includes their Cheezburger, Salt & Pepper Chikn, Hoisin Mock Duck, All Day Breakfast and Shawarma Kebab selection starting at £5.25 for your selection of three. The perfect light snack!

But if you fancy something other than dumplings, they also do noodles, veggies sides and chips & hashbrowns.

With these unique flavours, Lucy knew that she was on the money and started to create social channels for her new business venture.

“I whacked down Instagram, my little sister made us a logo and suddenly we were whizzing round Liverpool City Centre on our bikes dropping them at random people’s houses.”

Now having moved to Manchester, Lucy said “I had been to Afflecks only one time before, I fell into maybe the misguided crowd who thought that it was just like a place for teenage goths and a place to get your ears pierced, but then when I arrived here and I saw the eclectic mix of traders and all the stuff that’s going on in the building I have now seen that it’s totally more than what I initially thought. A place like Afflecks which is so LGBTQ friendly has been a really sweet place to open for us.”

Despite this, Desert Island Dumplings will soon be closing around June in Manchester due to work scheduling issues.

Lucy said: “The simple reason is because I haven’t had more than four days off in a row in like three years. The idea is just to take a beat, I’m moving to Edinburgh and I’m going to take the dumplings to the Scots. The business isn’t closing it’s just evolving.”

You’ve still got plenty of time before Desert Island Dumplings close here in Manchester, so head down to Afflecks and grab a bite!