"A big deal to me and a long time coming" - Manchester lad bringing affordable steakhouse chain home

A London steakhouse chain is opening its first Manchester restaurant in Deansgate – selling affordable steaks and its own brand of red wine.

Flat Iron has announced they are opening a new 150-cover restaurant this summer in the historic building that formerly housed outdoor clothing chain Blacks.

The restaurant's signature ‘Flat Iron’ steak costs just £14 while the chain also has its own brand of Malbec wine specially blended using grapes grown in the Limoux area of the Languedoc in southern France. Also on the menu will be their well-loved sides, including beef dripping chips, creamed spinach, truffled macaroni cheese and crispy bone marrow garlic mash.

Flat Iron’s founder, Charlie Carroll, is looking forward to coming home. He said: “Opening a restaurant in my hometown of Manchester is a big deal to me and a long time coming. The food and drink scene is so exciting at the moment and just keeps getting better. I can’t wait to be a tiny part of it.”

The new two-floor restaurant will embrace the architecture of the original Deansgate building by restoring the timber and parquet flooring, and exposing the brick walls and steel columns to give the space a rustic vibe.

Carroll said: “I fell in love with a beautiful historic building on Deansgate in 2018 and six years on we are finally opening this summer. Flat Iron is about unpretentious, top-quality steak, available to all. I am passionate about delicious beef and proud to bring Flat Iron to the city where I grew up and where so many of my friends and family live.”

Flat Iron opened in 2012 as a pop-up above a pub in East London which aimed to sell great steaks at a reasonable price. Now, the name has spread to own 12 restaurants in London, and in 2023 they opened restaurants in Cambridge and Leeds.