Ostara is dead. That lovely menu of cracking raw materials and quality British cooking is deceased.

This is depressing. We put the restaurant into our list of the top restaurants in Manchester earlier this month, the only one in Chorlton. Now it's gone.

The boss, Lee Janda, told us: “It was a big place but we didn't get the business despite some great reviews and customer feedback. It was frustrating. We just weren't getting the people in early week. It seems that lots of Chorlton people just won't pay for good food in restaurants. They will pay a certain amount and no more and that doesn't include above £15 for a top quality steak even if it is organic and of guaranteed quality.”

Confidential applauds the heady six months Janda and his team gave us, especially the cheery head waiter and the efficient head waitress. To get fresh oysters in a restaurant in a suburb that is generous in its provision of great food shops but less so for great food restaurants was a treat. And the savoury puddings should have been nationally famous.

But we disagree that Chorlton is quite so full of parsimonious miseries who know the price of everything and the value of nothing as Janda suggests. We think that Ostara's demise was down to more obvious problems such as being in the wrong place. It was opposite the arse-end of the jaded Chorlton Precinct, next to the busiest bus stop on one of the busiest bus routes in the city. Nor did the hard masculine – almost cold - décor in the restaurant help. It was thus never quite as comfortable as maybe this very feminine, cupcake loving suburb desired.

In fact we were so intrigued by Janda's words that we did a vast straw poll of a huge cross-section of the suburb. Well, we asked six of them. The results were split evenly. One person, Paul Angel, said when we compared Chorlton with West Didsbury and the latter's honour-call of The Lime Tree, Greens, Rhubarb and so forth: “ah, but that's Didsbury, isn't it? Used to spending there aren't they - built up a tradition almost? Different people. Different priorities.”

The other side could be summed up by this argument. If Ostara had been on Beech Road, say on the Marmalade site, it might have worked. The Horse and Jockey on the Green is going in the right direction: people in Chorlton will definitely pay the prices that Ostara had but not where it was and with its design.

Yet although Ostara might be dead Janda is not finished with the site.

He already owns Dulcimer, the excellent folk music inflected bar round the corner. He wants the Ostara site to emulate Dulcimer's success. Thus Chorlton will in February receive Charango, a South American themed bar and restaurant.

In Janda's words this will bring 'food served in a less formal tapas style with a higher percentage of thrifty vegetarian dishes alongside traditional peasant style meat and fish dishes from South America. Everything will be homemade and cooked by us with the best ingredients and nothing frozen or microwaved.'

Dishes will include broad bean, garden mint and feta quesadilla; chipotle free range chicken and chorizo quesadilla; grilled sardines marinated in ancho chilli and garlic; cochinita pibil outdoor reared pork stew served with pickled pink red onions.

Charango will trade from noon to midnight, 1pm at weekends. There'll be, in Janda's words again: 'famous DJs on Fridays and Saturdays playing music from Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as occasional bands from South American playing live in the bar area.' A curious proposition then. At Confidential we wish Lee Janda and Charango well. Yet we will also miss the short-lived excellence of Ostara.