Travel the World with the Small Plates at Volta

I love the drinks, I love the interior and I love the general relaxed neighbourhood-dining vibe, but we all know the reason why I’m there, and that is the stunning selection of small plates they have on offer.

Small plates are everywhere at the moment. It is almost as if every chef in Manchester has suddenly shrunk down to the size of a five-year-old and can no longer cope with standard sized plates of food. Not that I’m complaining, I love to share and dig into lots of different morsels, flavours and tastes.

I like Volta’s small plates a lot because they allow me to do just that. And not only that. Volta’s dishes have flavours from every corner of the globe- which is a round-the-world in eighty mouthfuls sort of experience.

Begin your journey in the Mediterranean by sipping a lovely glass of red wine, and picking at a plate of Charcuterie while you chat. There are some lovely sweet pickled peppers on there too which I could literally eat all day.

Moving more specifically to Spain, you can enjoy a traditional Pintox– a stick with spears through an olive, a fresh anchovy and a delicious pickled chilli. My favourite dish on the menu is the tenderstem broccoli with Romesco sauce which also hails from the Mediterranean. I want to make sure you order it because this is so much more than a side dish- this is one of the menu’s stand out stars.

You then can hop over to Greece to tuck into the famous beetroot dip topped off with some lovely smoked feta, hazelnuts and dill. I would recommend a jump back over the Med for a side order of the Focaccia for dipping too.

From Greece, we head North up the Middle East where you can enjoy the Lebanese lamb chops cooked to perfection in a range of spices and served with a yoghurt dip. This dish is crispy, succulent and very tactile- nothing makes you feel more human than tearing flesh from bone. The lamb is perfectly paired with the cauliflower salad which is pimped up with pomegranate and caraway seed.

Our final stop will be Asia. First, we nip over to Shanghai for a roasted belly pork bao bun garnished with sticky sauce, spring onion and sesame seed. Seabass with cabbage, chilli and lime is next on the agenda, which sits in the kind of aromatic, brothy sauce you would find in China which packs a serious punch from the inclusion of fresh chilli