The Muddler opened its doors on Newcastle's Grey Street around five years ago and immediately made a splash with its cool interiors and small plates approach to pan-Asian dining. We caught up with general manager Mark Hopkinson to find out a little bit about what they offer.
We kicked off asking what the original concept was behind The Muddler. “Neill (Winch, from owners Danieli Group) was a big fan of pan-Asian food”, Mark explains, “so it was a bit of a pet project for him initially. The original concept was small plates, tapas style but with pan-Asian food, although we still offer main courses. We think of the small plates as sharing food, family style. In terms of the cuisines, we cover all of Asia, but at the moment it’s mostly south-east Asian – Filipino, Malay, Japanese and Chinese obviously.”
And does the menu change regularly? “We have a strong base menu that we only tweak occasionally, there’s no need for a full seasonal menu change. Just small changes to the occasional dish. But we’ve got some exciting changes coming up because we’re going to increase the dim sum collection. Dim sum is really popular at the moment.”
Asked to sum up The Muddler’s vibe, Mark described it as “kind of Prohibition-era art deco – lots of black and gold and dark wood, autumnal colours – with a chilled, relaxing vibe. Just a really nice environment.” The location is obviously a big factor – a prominent position on Grey Street – and that’s clearly been a factor in its success. “The architecture is phenomenal,” Mark adds. “It was Osaka before, a Japanese place, on one side. But then The Muddler took over the building next door but one, next door to Harry’s, linked by a corridor and a kitchen underneath.”
As befits a venue named after a mainstay of the cocktail bar’s toolkit (although it also suggests cultures and cuisines being mixed together), The Muddler takes its cocktails very seriously and there are some wonderful bespoke creations on the menu. “I just put on a few new ones," Mark explains. ”Like the Dragon Fruit Mojito, the Szechuan Collins, the Mekong Mojito and the Hanoi Sour, which is like a lychee martini sour. Me, Jack and Kieran from the team have been developing them. It’s very popular at the moment to put a fresh twist on classic cocktails, so that’s what we’ve been doing!”
Customers will be pleased to hear that The Muddler has just introduced a new pre-theatre menu – running from noon to 6.30pm Monday to Friday you can enjoy three small plates for £18.95 – and with NE1's Newcastle Restaurant Week around the corner, there'll be more special offers to come soon.
We finished by asking Mark the traditional question: what should a new visitor to The Muddler definitely try from the menu? He didn’t hesitate. “The adobo belly pork, it’s fantastic. Our kitchen team is mostly Filipino and it’s virtually their national dish. And there’s a mapo tofu small plate dish, which is vegan and is incredibly popular too. It was created by one of our chefs who’s half Chinese, half Thai. It’s actually based on his family’s recipe. The sauce is unbelievable, it has some Szechuan influence so it has some heat to it. And the crispy chilli squid is our most popular small plate, it’s the best squid I’ve ever had!”
The Muddler is located at 69 Grey Street and is open from 11am to 11pm on weekdays, till midnight on Friday and Saturday and 10pm on Sundays.
