Inside 202 Kitchen: Manchester’s hottest new all-pink venue with Barbie booth sending Instagram wild

Welcome to the eye-popping world of 202 Kitchen – Manchester’s most in-demand new venue with its all-pink interiors and a human-sized Barbie doll box to pose in and post all over Instagram.

The bar and restaurant has been pulling in the (socially-distanced) crowds since launching in July with its trap box food concept and dress code of “Drip” – for the uninitiated that means extremely fashionable.

Celebrities have been among those clamouring to secure a table, the Real Housewives of Cheshire have already filmed there – and now owners are now having to turn down a deluge of photoshoot and filming requests from fashion brands wanting to use its quirky interiors.

The venue is based on the vacant lot next to Manchester Hall and the Avenue North on Bridge Street, with the main pink-themed restaurant based on a terrace covered with perspex and floral-festooned pink pagodas.

READ MORE: Where is the Real Housewives of Cheshire filmed in Manchester and Cheshire?

There’s Barbie dolls holding the table numbers, plenty of hot pink neons, and the rather lavish baby pink day beds that you can book while you snap a photo of your Insta-worthy cocktail.

Explore a little further inside and you’ll get to the venue’s extraordinary photoshoot room – with its Barbie dream house and a full human-sized doll box to rock your very best poses, which plenty of famous faces and influencers have been doing in recent weeks.

 

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Bad boy ken where you at 👅😎

A post shared by Jemma Lucy (@jemlucy) on Sep 3, 2020 at 2:10pm PDT

The venue is the brainchild of Leon Beckford, John Rambo and Panikos Parper who own the 101 club in Birmingham. When the first coronavirus lockdown brought a halt to nightclubs reopening, they decided to set up 202 restaurant instead in the city.  It went so well there that they swiftly brought the 202 Kitchen concept to Manchester as well.

Food at the restaurant is based around the trap box concept – where you choose your protein dishes and add four sides all served up in a metal box.

Venue bosses believe 202 Kitchen came at just the right time for post-lockdown fun in Manchester.

A bar spokesman said: “People were looking for a new venue to go and it came at just the right time. It’s been all over Instagram thanks to the interiors, and it’s just all gone mad since then.

“It’s become that hotspot that everyone wants to go to, we’ve had famous faces from Corrie, Love Island and the Real Housewives filming.

“With the photoshoot room and the Barbie box and dream house, it’s almost like a film set and Manchester fashion giant PrettyLittleThing have been the latest to use it.”

 

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Where else in Manchester would @prettylittlething shoot their latest drop? 🥂🤩✨📸 @202kitchen

A post shared by 202 KITCHEN (@202kitchen) on Sep 12, 2020 at 7:47am PDT

Due to the venue capacity and Covid-19 secure guidelines, numbers are limited – which means bagging a table at peak times has been somewhat tricky.

But for those keen to get a snap inside the Barbie box and Barbie dream house, you may need to be quick. For the plans are for the photoshoot room’s theming to change regularly to keep things fresh – and of course Insta-worthy.

 

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202 cam 📸 keep tagging us in your pics 💘

A post shared by 202 KITCHEN (@202kitchen) on Aug 28, 2020 at 4:55am PDT