Hickson & Black’s

Lovely meats, cheeses etc etc but the service is horrendous! They have zero personality and the coffee machine hasn’t worked since time began.
As with a lot of places in Chorlton they have a wonderful product with no idea how to interact with customers.

Hickson & Black’s.
It’s like an addiction, my love for cheese. I have to limit how much we have in the house, or I’ll find myself thinking about it sitting there, waiting for me and how if I don’t eat it the OH will eat it and I’ll have none left. It’s almost enough to send me into the kitchen right now…
Anyway *munches on mouthful of cheese* Hickson & Black’s is a fantastic little deli. Often the scent of bacon will greet you when you enter and if that’s not enough to send you into a buying frenzy, I don’t know what is. The chaps in here really know cheese. They know when it’s at it’s ripest and most delicious and they have a great selection behind the counter of other little goodies, such as salami and pastrami, bacon and olives.
I have to admit I’d love it if they had some more blue cheeses on offer, and some more of the ‘dirty’ cheese that I love, but then I’d be in there more often and I already spend enough in that shop for them to offer me a tab.
Whether you fancy a beer to take home to go with your tea, or picnic in your living room, or even a bacon butty, it’s well worth a visit.

This place is gold. The Lads who own the shop are genuinely nice pair who really know their stuff. The cheese is truly fine and the sandwiches outstanding. I really believe they do the best breakfast sandwiches in Chorlton, sausage and egg all the way for me! If you’re epically hungry I recommend the breakfast behemoth, which is stuffed with beautiful bacon, sausage, egg, mushroom, black pudding, tomato.
Jesus it’s ENORMOUS, and I am a very greedy man. Top quality food, five stars for filth factor.Boom.

Well, my cheese odyssey continued after The Cheese Hamlet (see review
) to the door of H&B’s, a small but perfectly formed delicatessen in Chorlton. Although not as full of products as TCH, they more than made up for it in the welcome I received AND the provision of a sausage and bacon butty made there and then using the meats they also sell alongside their cheeses. Heavenly.
There’s plenty of cheeses to choose from (British, French, Italian) and also British and Continental meats (I’m going back there for some serious chorizo shopping…).
Turning around from the cheese and meat counters I was met with another wondrous sight, that of shelves of bottled beer. Grabbing a couple of one of my favourites (Chocolate Marble by Marble Brewery) I paid for my wares, got in my car and devoured that butty before doing anything else.
Why aren’t more shops like this? If there are examples, dear Unilocalers, please tell me!

I went to Hickson and Black’s on a mission for top quality Spanish meats and have to say that I was disappointed. They had a reasonable variety on offer (including Leonese cecina!) but nothing like the range suggested by the website and amazingly no Jamon Iberico, unthinkable for a specialist deli of any kind, let alone one with a Spanish focus. The biggest let down for however was that the staff couldn’t tell me which pork products contained free range meat and more worryingly didn’t really seem to care. I can forgive not knowing as I appreciate it can be difficult to find out but cannot accept self described food lovers not caring about the provenance of their produce.
For me, not a patch on A Taste of Honey in West Didsbury.

Hickson & Black’s is a small deli tucked away in Chorlton-​cum-​Hardy. Selling cheese, cured meat, bread and groceries, it brings some much needed fine foods to the area.
The shop is relaxed and friendly and you’re encouraged to sample before you buy. Roquefort, Brie, Feta and Chorizo sausage were a few specialities that caught my eye. However, they also stock local produce and British farmhouse chesses.
If you like good quality, tasty food then this is definitely worth a trip.