25 top places for street food in Manchester and Liverpool

Located in the Northern Quarter, this friendly neighbourhood bistro and bar is the place to avanti if it’s a taste of traditional Sicily you fancy – from authentic street food snacks through to big plates of pasta to desserts and holiday memory gelato, eat in or take away.

The cosy Spice Thai restaurant is hidden away just above a motel bar near Hanover Street, with an interior intended to resemble an authentic street food market stall in Bangkok to immerse you in a proper Thai experience, on both culture and cuisine fronts. 

Suki Suki Street Food & Bar is a Pan-Asian street food bar located on Deansgate under the arches of the Great Northern Warehouse.

This neon-lit, old-school tiled chippy on Cross Street is owned by local couple Trisha and Marcus and has plenty of fans including a few celebrities. There are queues out of the door regularly for their traditional fare done very, very well.

Pattersons at Escape to Freight Island means only one thing – the Liverpool legend has finally made it to Manchester.

Owners, Harry and Jessica created Banh Vi after travelling across South East Asia and being inspired by the cuisine offered by street food vendors in Thailand and Vietnam.  

A real Northern success story, the second location for Bundobust in Manchester and the fourth in the family of northern-based restaurants (Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds and Liverpool have come before), the Bundobust Brewery is a welcome addition to Oxford Street at the southern part of the city.

With a menu that mirrors its sister restaurants, the food is a reliable selection of Indian-style vegetarian small plates. Expect to find crisp okra fries dusted with black salt and mango powder and the iconic vada pav – a deep-fried mashed potato ball in a bun, with red and green chutneys.

Team GB has a different meaning to the guys who run Ciaooo Loaded Garlic Bread, the takeaway version of the popular Ciaooo Pizza, just round the corner.

If it’s an Aperol Spritz you’re hankering after, or an authentic Sicilian blend coffee, then Carlisi, at the finance end of town, is your place. Described by owner Alessio as an Italian-fusion concept bar, think great cocktails and aperitivos and modern cicchetti-style light bites.

This slick 2020 addition to the Corn Exchange is determined to do something different to other contemporary Indian restaurants. And it largely succeeds, bringing flair and originality to the well-worn territory of street food and small plates.

Following in the footsteps of other successful models in the region, with communal dining tables and a mezzanine served by a choice of resident kitchens, this 100-year-old warehouse-turned-foodhall is one of the Ropewalks newcomers breathing life back into Duke Street.

There’s three floors of street food fun at Hello Oriental. A Chinese bakery and cafe is joined by Vietnamese restaurant Rice Paper Pho, an Asian-inspired Downtown Oriental food hall, and a supermarket stocking everything from frozen dim sum to sake.

Hong Thai’s small army of fans were at a loss in November 2023 when a fire meant their favourite Arndale Food Market lunch spot had to permanently closed. But come summer 2024, they were smiling once more. Hong Thai was back in business – this time in its own standalone restaurant on Oldham Road.

Little Piece of Bahia brings Brazilian history to Manchester through authentic cuisine and homemade recipes.

Its website proclaims ‘authentic Chinese food’, but the menu at Maggie Fu’s stretches way beyond the borders of the People’s Republic, and the bustling open kitchen serves up plenty more than just its classic stir fries with rice, dim sum dumplings and steamed bao buns.

These guys are the first name in cheese on toast. Not any old cheese on toast, mind. Northern Soul cheese on toast. – or grilled cheese sandwich, natch – reaches the same dizzying melted heights as the French croque monsieur or the Alpine fondue (technically not cheese on toast, but toast in cheese).

As you might expect from the name, Vietnam’s national dish pho (pronounced “fuh”) is at the heart of the menu here. Just shy of 20 versions of the nutritious and aromatic noodle soup are cooked fresh daily in the Corn Exchange kitchen.

“The food speaks for itself,” says Cue Tran, owner of the Pho Cue Vietnamese kitchen, whose aim is to take the authentic street food dishes of his home country and give them a modern “Instagrammable” twist while retaining their flavour, freshness and family traditions.

If you love the down-home flavours and honky tonk sounds of the southern states of America, head to Red Dog Saloon Liverpool. This Texas BBQ restaurant on Bold Street is all about juicy, hickory-smoked meats, authentic Deep South sides, and just-poured bourbon on the rocks, exactly like they serve it in Austin.

Tallow at New Century is the brainchild of Tom Lowe, a classically trained chef from East London who decided to up sticks, move to Manchester, and bring his 25-years of industry experience with him. 

The second of their city centre venues, Tampopo Manchester Corn Exchange has the same wok-fresh East Asian menu as its older sister on Albert Square, but with a bigger, more style-led setting. Think statement lighting and tiles, splashes of bright colour, and low-lit individual tables instead of the shared bench seating of the original.

With “south east Asian hawker food” the tagline for Tiger Rock, you can expect cheap and cheerful small plates covering mainly Thai flavours, but also drawing on salt and peppery Chinese, spice-strong Malaysian, vegan Singaporean, and sweet and sour Vietnamese cuisines.

Nelson Lam and Leo Tran’s Viet Shack empire started with a humble takeaway stall in the Arndale Market which quickly gained a reputation for its dazzling lunch dishes at bargain prices.

The team behind Wolf At The Door know a thing or two about adaptation. They launched as a highly stylised restaurant and cocktail bar serving NOMA-influenced small plates. Then changed their name (they were formerly known as Wilderness) and completely overhauled their menu. Nowadays they serve tacos and bao buns that keep the playful feel of the original offering, but with much more accessible prices. 

We’d rather see a restaurant that does one thing well than one that does a wide variety of dishes to the same average standard. Yard & Coop Manchester is firmly in the former category. It serves buttermilk fried chicken and that’s about it, unless you’re a veggie in which case you can have halloumi instead.

Indian Tiffin Room Cheadle was one of the first local places to step away from the typical menu of the average flock wallpapered curry house and focus instead on Indian street food.