Levenshulme’s food and drink scene continues to grow with new opening Isca

Levenshulme’s exciting food and drink scene is getting another great addition in the form of Isca, due to open this month.

Isca is a new neighbourhood wine shop and deli-style restaurant from chef Isobel Jenkins, the founder of supper club Season’s Eatings, and Caroline Dubois, a sommelier at Stockport’s Where the Light Gets In. 

“We both live in Levenshulme and wanted to bring something to our local community and be able to work with people in our area,” says Isobel, who has 12 years’ experience in restaurants in Manchester and regularly hosts seasonal pop ups around the city as part of Season’s Eatings.

“The food offering will be based around what is available on the counter, so you can eat in or take away. It will be seasonal, mainly vegetarian and primarily organic, and we’re sourcing from local and mainly UK suppliers,” she adds. 

“The meat we do use occasionally is sourced from Littlewoods Butchers in Heaton Chapel. We have both worked with them before and know their ethos around the way animals are treated matches ours.”

There will also be salads, dips, olives and cakes among the produce on offer, and “a carefully chosen selection of products produced by other makers that we love and want to share,” notes Isobel.

Customers will be able to take away wine and beer, as well as the food produced on site. As Caroline specialises in natural wine, “all our wine is from natural winemakers, carefully sourced from around Europe,” says Isobel.

It’s also their intention to be single use plastic-free.

“We’ve worked hard to find takeaway containers that are kind to the planet, and we hope to encourage our customers to bring their own containers and reusable cups,” says Isobel.

The sustainable ethos also extends to Isca’s décor and fittings.

“We have tried to reuse what we could in the fit out and sourced some items from local antiques shops, as well as working with makers we know respect their materials and where they come from, including On The Brink Studio, Granby Workshop and Joe Hartley,” explains Isobel.

Close to Levenshulme train station, Isca only has room for 13 seats, and the hope is to be a welcoming and cosy space, as well as being multipurpose – so somewhere to host workshops, supper clubs and pop ups. 

“We’ll be open from 9am to 7pm Tuesday to Saturday, with wine and cheese nights at the weekends along with other events,” she says.

Planned events already include a Vermouth-making workshop with Into The Gathering Dusk on 5th December, Things Palace with chef Lorcan Kan on 8th December, and Sombresa Supper Winter Series on 18th January.

Isca opens this month at 825 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, M19 3PN.

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