Chop'd | Fantastic New Salad Bar in Manchester, UK

On Wednesday 14 September, I attended a special blogger event at the new (fantastic) salad bar on Cross Street in Manchester.  Named Chop'd, and over 12 years has been securely growing into a novel, unique, and brilliant franchise.  It originates from London and currently has 14 establishments in London, a sister company in Liverpool called Salad Bowl, and a potential new opening in Leeds.

This means that Manchester is the first location to have a Chop'd salad bar outside of London, and has been running successfully in Manchester thus far for about three weeks now (as of 14 September!).

The evening kicked off with Eddie, the Managing Director, presenting the origin, growth, and ethos of the company, which is all about producing great food that a) one would feed their kids, and b) very tasty - which is a marvelous concept, and Eddie is a man that has been with the company from the start and has progressed through the managerial ranks as the business had grown - he is full of passion and aspiration about Chop'd.  And why not!  At this point, I was already becoming a fan.

After Eddie’s presentation, we undertook informative taste testing activities, learning where Chop’d source some of their produce, such as the Kent apples, and West Sussex tomatoes – Chop’d utilise the nonconformist fruit and veg that farms produce, as many big supermarkets only want fruit and veg that fit their perceived idea of standard.  Chop’d has a range of flavoured fruit and veg that can be quite unique as they are naturally grown without preconceived notions of how they should appear and without manipulation.  As the business expand throughout the UK, then the logistics of moving the produce becomes easier.  The best samples of food we tasted during this activity were the Salmon and Miz Pepperpots jerk paste.  The smoked salmon was delicious, flaky and so fresh.  It comes from a London smokehouse called H. Forman & Son, and salmon lovers would absolutely love it.  The jerk paste is made and produced by Eddie’s friend, which, I believe can also be bought online, and it is full of flavour and the perfect level of spiciness that is not too overbearing.

The main event of the evening and the reason why we were all invited, was to sample the salads.  Chop’d concept is brilliant and simple.  It is basically build your own salad, which is separated into three sections of ingredients, and oh my, lots of ingredients.  The first two sections are made up of rice, cous cous, rocket salad, beans, chickpeas, egg, pasta – mostly anything to fill your large tub (the portion size is incredible!).  Customers can choose approximately five ingredients from these sections, and the third section, only one.  However, the third section comprises of the aforementioned salmon, chorizo, avocado, meats, etc., so it is essentially the big mamma ingredient that you are building your salad towards.  After the salad is made, it is then all mixed together and dressing, and, if needed, extra flavour is sprinkled on.  This is one thing you often never see with salads – mixing, and ensuring all the flavours of the salad flourish together.

For just under £6, customers will get an extremely generous portion that could potentially last through two meals, and still be filling.  Two smaller sizes are priced at around £5.50 and just under £5.  Totally worth it!

For my salad, I aimed to finish with the avocado, so I wanted to keep to rocket salad, cous cous, kidney beans, chickpeas, sundried tomatoes, beetroot, and egg; and dressed in a honey and herb dressing to give it a little extra flavour.  It was superb!  Flavourful and nutty, and creamy!  Perfect!

I wholeheartedly recommend Chop’d, to all food, salad, healthy eating lovers.  You will not be disappointed.  When I return as a paying customer, you can find my customer review on Yelp: http://mcrphil.yelp.co.uk/

To finish, we toured the basement, which will be utilised as a relaxing work room for customers: drink coffee, eat salad, write a novel, complete a powerpoint presentation, complete a thesis, whatever.

To expand on the coffee; Chop’d works in collaboration with Grindsmith to sell their brand of coffee, and it certainly is not your average coffee.