Best Manchester Restaurants

Isinglass: a transparent, almost pure gelatin prepared from the air bladder of the sturgeon and certain other fishes and used as an adhesive and a clarifying agent. Sound appetizing? Enter the cozy dining room (you’ll feel like you’re eating among a large family, the tables are so close together) chow down on the excellent beetroot-cured salmon, twice baked leg o’ lamb and homemade ice cream, and forget the dictionary definition. All ingredients are locally-sourced and quintessentially British—with a modern edge. Certainly worth the trek out to suburban Urmston.

Push back the formal-looking door of this historic-listed building and you might as well be pushing back the curtains of a boudoir in Paris’ Pigalle district. As one of the best places to eat in Manchester, Lounge 10 is a haven for hedonists, with velvet drapes, suggestive artwork and a wine list to make your mouth water. The menu is rather sensual, too, featuring dishes like oven-baked lamb rump, roasted garlic butter lobster and an excellent Eton Mess (crushed meringue with raspberries, as invented at the school with the same name) for dessert. On the last Friday of the month there’s a supper club deal that includes cabaret and dinner (GBP30).

This restaurant clearly takes its name from the Edwardian stock exchange building it’s housed in because stock cubes in the kitchen would be an abomination. Instead this Italian restaurant plates up impressive creations in sumptuous settings; think rich, homemade meatballs, swordfish Carpaccio and squid ink pasta with crabmeat and sea bass. For dessert, don’t miss the excellent panna cotta, the fondete di cioccolato (“a sumptuous homemade chocolate fondant served with a rich white chocolate sauce”) or the crostata al’limone with homemade raspberry sorbet.

Ever had a hankering for a quail bhuna? No, neither had we…until we discovered Hunters, which turns the dependable Manchester curry into a thing of intrigue. Despite the average-looking façade and the fluro lighting, this is a curry house with a difference. Alongside more predictable curries such as chicken korma and ultra-hot vindaloos are British game options, such as venison, pheasant and partridge. Dishes are served late, after midnight in some cases. We don’t need to tell you that it’s in the Northern Quarter.

Everyone in Manchester has their favorite curry house, and while Moon doesn’t really look the part with its modern eating area (think long tables covered with white tablecloths and comfy chairs) and lack of curry-scented wallpaper, it does serve up a damn good balti. Cooked with ginger, garlic, fresh tomatoes and onions, this is the best place to eat in Manchester if comfort is what you seek. You’ll find everything on the menu, from chicken tikka masala to tomato-based karahi dishes, baltis, tandooris, samosas, onion bhajis and dals.

Who needs tables and chairs when you have wooden benches and hundreds of stalls selling delicious artisanal foodie creations? Manchester Fine Food Market in St. Anne’s Square opens regularly on Saturdays and you can picnic your way through specialty Manchester cheeses, hams, specialist ales, olives, pies and some of the finest fudge known to man, created according to a secret recipe in nearby Burnley. Don’t miss the bakery stall named "The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon;" their chocolate brownies will win you over.

No ordinary soup kitchen this, though it does have the requisite wooden dining tables and long benches. Somewhere between communal dining hall and stylish restaurant, Soup Kitchen is a student favorite. There are five or so soups on offer each day (think foodie varieties like potato and garlic rather than old-fashioned cans of oxtail), plus baked potatoes and warm bowls of chili, served against a backdrop of bookshelves and bar stools. The best part is that nothing will set you back more than a fiver.

“You wanna live like the common people, you wanna do whatever common people do,” sang Jarvis Cocker of Britpop band Pulp back in the 1990s. Pulp hailed from Sheffield, not Manchester, but their lyrics were indicative of a northern resurgence, when working-class northerners were suddenly deemed cool by their southern counterparts. A Place Called Common, then, is that ethos in bar-resto form; a down-to-earth eating and drinking spot that brings glamour to shabby chic. The toasted sandwiches are perfect on a cold day, especially when combined with a steaming hot mug of Vimto.