If it weren’t for the Birmingham heavy branding of his clothes on Saturday Kitchen, or the lazy way he manipulates vowels whilst cooking on there, you could be forgiven for thinking that Brad Carter is a Mancunian. He has the swagger of a man raised in the third city, walking with a broad simian stroll; chin up, arms wide and swinging like the pendulum of wall clock. His demeanour is almost Gallagheresque, until you speak to him and find that underneath he is softly spoken and charming and therefore absolutely a Brummie. So nothing at all like the Gallaghers. Yes, One Star Doner Bar should have had its first site in Birmingham, but if it had to be anywhere else, he has chosen right in Manchester. Manchester fits Brad Carter. 

 

The idea of One Star Doner Bar isn’t a new one, nor is this the first time I have tried them. The kebabs were a weekly Friday gig over a short period in lockdown 3.0, with a mortadella one in the opening fortnight remaining the best thing I ate over that lockdown. I went every week he sold them. He’s now set up shop in Escape to Freight Island, which is Manchester’s glitzy take on street food and not Kurt Russell’s latest film. The high ceilinged, bare brick complex is next door to the ravey Warehouse Project and comes complete with huge LCD screens, loud music, and inhumane eating conditions on this chilly Friday evening. Someone warned me to take a coat there. I should have worn two. Freight Island is unlike any street food event I have ever seen; a sign that big investment is going to push it to new boundaries. Amongst the ten or so traders, they have a Basque restaurant in-house, tacos from the team behind London’s Breddos, a brewery, wine shop, and a cocktail bar. 

 

The kebabs are supposedly based on those from Berlin’s famous Gemuse Kebab, though having never been to the city – or indeed Germany – I’ll have to take his word on it. They have two options on the night we are there; chicken or lamb, both served on thick pide bread sourced from a Turkish bakery, with a ‘techno slaw’ and grilled pepper that tastes like a big padron pepper on ecstasy. We double-drop on the ‘babs, first the chicken shawarma, with free range chicken thighs that the marinade has caught and charred, with ‘kebab van salad’, pickled chillies and a pokey garlic mayo. It’s followed by lamb shoulder marinated and cooked so that the thinly sliced meat is a bright pink, with hot sauce, more of that salad, and mint yogurt. Neither holds back on the heat level and both are a million miles away from the shit you spill in a taxi on the way home. These are carefully put together and thought out, bursting with enough complexity to have me convinced it will fly over the head of those expecting cheap meat inbetween a crudely cut pitta bread . At a tenner apiece they represent better value than anything else we ate there. With these, at a fiver a portion, are the potato smileys cut to the acid house smiley face that dominated the early nineties. One with chicken nuggets that are the weakest thing we eat, and another sensational lahmacun version, topped with a spiced lamb mince that I find myself dipping the bread in the last of. It’s naughty, naughty, very naughty. 

 

As a proud Brummie I’m not supposed to admit that Manchester is great, but it really is. The food scene is almost as rich as their music scene and they have places all over the city that feed people exceptionally well at every price point. From this extremely brief trip there is a perfect ten to come from lunch to join the ridiculously good cocktails at Schofields and the ridiculously bad Edinburgh Castle. For all this, I love that a Brummie has sauntered into the city, chest out, with nobody understanding a word he is saying, to bring the best food to their shiny new street food hall. He’s done good, Bab, but now it’s time to bring it home. I think I know just the place. 

9/10