MasterChef: The Professionals winner Daniel Merriman has opened Little Beast at Medlock Square, Manchester’s new dining precinct beside the expanded Etihad Campus. The 105-cover restaurant pairs a lunar-themed, seasonally driven small-plates menu with a moody, mid-century-inflected interior by WANT Studio and consultant Laura Montana.
Little Beast’s positioning is pragmatic: it sits within Manchester City’s £300m Medlock Square development, an area conceived to draw visitors to the Etihad Campus year‑round by combining restaurants, a food hall and a large hotel. That context matters for how the concept will be judged — it must deliver consistent covers from commuters, matchday crowds and local diners rather than rely solely on destination reservations. The menu’s focus on sharable small plates and theatrical centrepieces (a 500g sirloin on the bone, for example) reads as a deliberate attempt to balance everyday covers with Instagram‑ready moments that can lift off‑peak demand.
Concept and culinary narrative
The restaurant’s “rhythm of the moon” framing gives the menu a clear curatorial device: sections such as ‘Harvest Moon’ and ‘Sturgeon and Hunter Moon’ group dishes around seasonality and storytelling rather than rigid course sequencing. For operators, that is a useful model — it simplifies menu updates while allowing ingredient-led experimentation. Merriman’s background in established country and fine dining kitchens helps explain the menu’s hybrid approach, where classical techniques (ballotine, cured trout pastrami) sit alongside bold flavour combinations (sea buckthorn, black onion butter) and bar cocktails that lean into theatricality.
Interior and brand execution
WANT Studio’s execution, led by Liam McCue and Adelaide Winter in collaboration with Montana, opts for a restrained, clubby palette: dark charcoal walls, warm-toned lighting, timber and rust-red upholstery paired with vintage-style posters. The banquette-led layout and mid‑century curves create an approachable yet intimate feel that suits a 105-cover operation — the scale is large enough for turnover efficiency but small enough to maintain atmosphere. The design avoids literal lunar gimmickry, instead hinting at the theme through sectional menu structure and mood, which should make the concept more durable as trends shift.
Operationally, the choice to foreground small plates and sharables supports flexible covers and reduces single high-cost ticket risk. However, dependence on seasonal produce and distinct flavour pairings raises kitchen complexity and supply considerations; robust supplier relationships and tight menu engineering will be essential to sustain margins as the concept scales its service across different demand patterns at the Etihad Campus.
Why this matters: For hospitality operators and creatives, Little Beast is a compact case study in translating a thematic narrative into a commercially viable format. It shows how a recognisable, media‑friendly concept — a chef with TV credentials, a clear story device, confident drinks and a mood-driven interior — can be married to pragmatic menu design and scale considerations to serve both spectacle and repeat business in a mixed-use development. Designers and operators can learn from its restraint in theming, the balance of theatre and day‑to‑day functionality, and the operational implications of a seasonally focused small-plates offer.