About Manteca

Manteca is a ‘nose-to-tail’ restaurant in London’s Shoreditch, focussing on in house salumeria, hand rolled pastas and fire cooked cuts to share. The menu takes influences from Italy and is gutsy, bold and brave in its approach.

Manteca is unique. It’s one of the few restaurants in the UK that makes its own in-house salumi (the Italian for cured meat) with whole Cornish Lop pigs arriving weekly to be butchered and turned into world class salami and whole cured muscles. Manteca makes over 500 servings of its own hand-rolled pasta daily. All ingredients are carefully sourced. Waste is frowned upon and what waste there is, is reworked into new and interesting dishes. Plates are sharing style and the kitchen uses open fire to cook prime meat cuts to perfection, all being part of the drama of Manteca.

Manteca has pedigree. The restaurant is a collaboration between David Carter, best known for the deep-glazed barbecue glories of Smokestak, and Chris Leach, who did his time at Pitt Cue, so straight away you know the food here is going to be good. The kitchen is open plan and on view, as is the glass-walled maturing room where their own in house Salumi cures and ages.

In 2019 David Carter and Chris Leach came up with the idea for Manteca. The pair launched a ‘pop up’ in Mayfair to test their new concept, following which they set up in Soho. The current Curtain Road location became available in December 2020, an ex-Pizza Express site, and provided the degree of space, and layout the business needed. At the end of December 2020, the site was acquired, and the hard work began, making the business what it is today.

What is Paperchase Delivering?

Paperchase are conducting the weekly bookkeeping and management reporting that David and his senior management team need, in addition to helping the team to understand how the numbers work. Whilst the business is profitable, recouping the initial investment in a short space of time, Paperchase keeps the business fully informed, with weekly management accounts helping the team understand the direction of the business and the numbers. As the business grows, finding new sites is inevitable and Paperchase will help in this process with due diligence.

Tushar Patel – Account Manager for Paperchase comments:

“I am so impressed with what Manteca is achieving in terms of their business model, the deliverables, the volume of covers, the turnover and the profitability of the business. It is a great testimony to David, Chris and the team. They have created a niche for themselves in a very competitive marketplace and the team have really made Manteca the ‘hot ticket’ in London.”

Manteca has pushed the envelope, innovating, and creating new ways of delivering plates of food, including the development of the meat curing processes that has made them stand out when compared to their peers. Tushar Patel identified that there were grants available for Research & Development, and the entire salumi production process would qualify for such grant funding, which was applied for, and was successful in securing.

What’s Next?

David and Chris are ambitious. David has aspirations for other types of restaurants, that, like Manteca, with that certain twist and point of difference on a traditional cuisine style, create vibrant and exciting dining experiences. We look forward to partnering with David and Chris again and seeing what they produce next.