Sharing a fine meal with a bit of history ..... in Didsbury at 4 Of Us .... part 1

Now if like me you have knocked around in Didsbury for over 40 years you will know that restaurant beside the Old Cock.

In its time it has had different names and was variously a “streak house” and more recently a companion to Dimitris’s the Greek Taverna on Deansgate.

Today it is called 4 Of Us, was opened nine months ago by four friends and is also a wine shop with an impressive range of wines on offer.*

Some of these we were treated to as samples by our host Magda, who chose two English wines and ones from Austria and Slovakia.

Of the five we sampled it was the two English wines we preferred, and one of these accompanied the meal.  

I could of course at this point list the food on the menu, but where would the fun be in that when by following the link, you can discover it for yourself along with the all the wines on offer.

That said I do have to mention my dish which the menus describes as “roasted cauliflower fricassee, curried aubergine, baby spinach and chick peas”.

As a vegetarian who tends to go for the “same stuff”, this was a wonderful blend of some simple ingredients with a fine light sauce.

All of which just leaves the history of the building which over the next few days I will endeavour to research.

Back in the 1970s I can’t remember even clocking the building on the odd visit to the Old Cock when we would miss the odd lecture, preferring a pint of Badger’s Surprise to an hour on the Philosophy of Education.

Years later and in front of a classroom in Poundswick High School in Wythenshawe I  sometimes reflected how the pub had been the better choice.

But we were post grads doing the year course for a Cert Ed, and had the arrogance of graduates who had made a career of missing lectures during the previous three years.

Suffice to say I know that in 1901 the building which is home to 4 of Us was a “pastry and confectioner’s” run by a Mary Sharp.

And that leaves Martha Dimond also a confectioner and Arthur Garret  Gibons  who described himself as "Baker and confectioner", all of whom occupied the place in the decades either side of 1911.

So more to uncover.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures, at the 4 Of Us, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2024

*4 Of Us, https://fourofus.co.uk/