City eat

How an ex-musician and his wife created the hottest deli in downtown Manchester.

"If we'd just liked food we could have opened a deli in the suburbs," says Chris Joyce. It would probably have made life easier for him and his wife, Beckie. But it wouldn't have given downtown Manchester a landmark food store and café. Certainly not two (the couple's second shop opened this summer).

Love Saves The Day was launched three years ago in the up-and-coming, bohemian Northern Quarter. It was a groovy deli designed for a population imagined by hi-fi television commercial makers and estate agents selling loft spaces. Instead of the Spar round the corner, it would be serious about food but not for those spending silly money on fancy bottles of olive oil to give away. "The last thing I wanted was for people to come in and think they couldn't make a meal out of what was here," says Chris.

Although he's reticent about his previous life, and claims not to have picked up drumsticks for a decade, as the drummer on Simply Red's first three albums Chris didn't have to go cap in hand to a bank manager. As a planning officer for the council, Beckie had seen the future of urban regeneration. They had both lived in Italy and both loved food; they believed in making city-centre living work. And after all, Urbis, the museum celebrating cities, has just opened in Manchester. "Urban convenience store" was the phrase they had in mind as they spent their capital on shelves and flooring.

Their store is part traiteur, selling antipasti, pâtés, sauces, salads, coq au vin and fish cakes to be taken home for supper, along with cheese and wine. Dishes made on the premises can also be eaten in the café, along with the coffee they pride themselves on (and sell as beans). Basics are the best of their type: tip-top tinned tomatoes, pasta, bread, jams and mustards; names familiar on the independent food-shop circuit, like Tracklements, Wendy Brandon, Cipriani and Bay Tree. Local produce includes potted shrimps from Southport, sausages from the Saddleworth Sausage Company, ham from the Cheshire Smokehouse and Ravensoak cheese. Their bread comes from the Barbakan bakery in Chorlton. Chris has spent two years building up the 300-strong wine list. Six wines can be drunk by the glass, or lunchtime customers can add £3 corkage to the cost of any bottle.

Yet his advice to all of us who believe, based on our own observations and way of life, that there's a gap in the market: be prepared for a long slog. "The margins are really low, staff costs are high, the hours are long," says Chris. In practice places like his scarcely exist outside London. Even in Clerkenwell or Marylebone such food shops for an urban utopia may struggle to survive.

"The biggest lesson we've learned in three years is that we're not typical customers," the couple admit. There is, they've discovered, no such thing. Nevertheless, they still let their enthusiasms guide them in choosing their stock – in the hope, often realised, that customers will catch on. "People have forgotten how to go up to a counter and ask questions," says Chris. Those that do might be persuaded, say, to try a cheese to go with Sardinian lemon marmalade, and a bottle of wine too.

LSTD is the only place outside London you're likely to find bottarga, the dried mullet roe from Sardinia; smoked tuna and swordfish; and the Sardinian flatbread pane carasau. "People will come in and ask: 'is that low in fat?' And I'll say, 'it's a fantastic blue cheese, no, it's not low in fat,' " says Beckie, with the same sense of conviction that made her want to let down the Tesco Direct van's tyres when they first started encroaching on her territory.

Love Saves The Day has earned accolades for its coffee and as best food shop in Manchester's Food and Drink Awards. Yet, to the couple's chagrin, most of the occupants of the 90 flats above the store still get in their car and go to the supermarket. As pioneers, it's also galling to realise there are spies about. Selfridges has subsequently arrived in Manchester, Harvey Nichols is on its way.

The Joyces, who are founder members of the local branch of Slow Food, have found the shop has become more of a destination, and their customers are almost proprietorial. Books like Clarissa Hyman's Cucina Siciliana and Mary Contini's Dear Francesca have been launched there; they've held an evening devoted to the Lebanese wine Chateau Musar, and an Italian food and wine-matching dinner. Two actors from London, appearing at the Royal Exchange Theatre, went out together, each intent on showing the other that they had found the best coffee shop in Manchester. They soon realised that they were both talking about Love Saves The Day.

Now, though, they would have more than one option. A couple of months ago Chris and Beckie bought the already established deli Atlas, from the people who had first set up the bar of the same name in the regenerated Castlefield area. Under their ownership Love Saves The Day's magnetic field will be extended, drawing Manchester's cabal of everyday gourmets into the city, giving them somewhere to meet, eat, shop and share their love of good food. E

Love Saves The Day, Smithfield Buildings, Tib Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester (0161 832 0777) and 345 Deansgate, Castlefield, Manchester (0161 834 2266).