Adam Maidment

Adam Maidment is a senior What's On and LGBTQ+ reporter at the Manchester Evening News, focusing on food, drink and leisure across the city. His coverage of food is distinguished by first-person, immersive reporting that treats restaurants, pubs and experiences as stories about place and people rather than just menus. He combines detailed descriptions of dishes and venues with a strong sense of atmosphere, often folding in broader cultural and community angles alongside the food itself.

Food reviews and new openings across Greater Manchester

Adam’s core brief includes new restaurant and bar openings and regular food reviews, making him a key voice on where to eat and drink in and around the city. He writes about dedicated food concepts such as an authentic Sicilian spot in the Northern Quarter, treating openings as opportunities to explain what makes a venue different and how it fits into the local dining scene. In a piece about accidentally buying a £13 pie during a Bonnie Tyler show, he uses a simple snack at a gig to explore pricing, quality and the quirks of ordering food in live music settings. In his round-up of thirty standout restaurant visits over a year, he helps define the region’s best meals, drawing on his own experiences across areas from Stockport and Salford to Bury and Bolton. His food writing tends to foreground specifics: what a dish costs, how it’s served, how long you might spend there and the kind of crowd a place attracts, giving a practical frame around the narrative.

He is also willing to be directly critical when the concept gets in the way of the meal.

In his review of a steak served from a crisp packet with a paper fork, he spells out why gimmicky presentation undermines the dining experience, balancing humour with clear judgement on taste, value and comfort. Across these pieces, he favours straightforward language and concrete detail, making his assessments usable for readers navigating the area’s growing food and drink options.

Pub of the Week and character-led venue profiles

Adam regularly turns his attention to pubs and bars, treating them as local institutions with histories, nicknames and loyal regulars. His work on “Pub of the Week” features, including profiles of venues such as the Spread Eagle, focuses on origin stories, ownership, décor and the small details that give a pub its character. In his piece on a pub named after a fairytale, he leans into the charm of a name like Puss in Boots while also unpacking the more prosaic nickname locals use, using that contrast to show how the place is perceived in everyday conversation.

These articles mix interviews with owners and staff with observations about the building, its layout and its role in the neighbourhood, offering more context than a standard listings-style write-up.

Even when the hook is playful, the reporting is grounded in specifics – opening hours, offerings, renovation history and the kinds of events a venue runs. That approach makes his pub coverage particularly useful for stories that hinge on heritage, community ties or the evolution of traditional boozers into modern hospitality spaces.

Immersive shifts, treasure hunts and city experiences

Beyond static reviews, Adam often structures his pieces around doing something himself, whether that is working a shift, attending a major event or completing a challenge. He has joined a Five Guys team on shift to learn how its burgers are made, documenting the routines, preparation and “secret” elements that underpin a popular fast-food brand.

In a feature built around a WhatsApp message that sent him on a treasure hunt through the city, he walks readers through the two-and-a-half-hour route, puzzle structure and competitive leaderboard, turning the article into a practical guide to the experience as well as a narrative of his own attempt.

His leisure coverage also includes major cultural events and attractions. He has reported from the BRIT Awards when the ceremony was staged in the city, focusing on what it is “really like” to attend, from the atmosphere at the arena to the logistics of getting in and out. In another piece, he takes his 14-year-old nephew to the Batman Unmasked exhibition, using their reactions to assess whether the event works for families and fans.

This immersive style carries over into his food and drink pieces: readers are invited to follow him through an experience, see what he orders or does, and judge from his account whether it suits their own tastes or occasions.

LGBTQ+ and community angles within the leisure beat

Alongside food, drink and entertainment, Adam’s role includes coverage of LGBTQ+ issues, and he has a history of reporting on specific neighbourhoods and communities. His author description notes that he writes about issues affecting LGBTQ+ people as part of his brief, placing inclusivity and representation within the same “What’s On” frame as restaurants and gigs. His earlier work has included stories about local parks and the impact of residents’ behaviour, such as people feeding curries, chocolate rolls and chicken to birds and the resulting vermin problems, showing an interest in how everyday habits affect shared spaces.

Community features and LGBTQ+ coverage sit alongside his leisure writing rather than apart from it, which gives him a particular lens on food and drink stories that intersect with identity, neighbourhood change or civic pride. For organisations or venues that position themselves as inclusive spaces or anchors in their communities, this combination of beats means he is attuned to both the practical offer – what you serve and how you operate – and the broader social story behind it.