An insiders guide to eating and drinking in Levenshulme

Once a stall at Levy Market, then a pop-up pizzeria above Fred’s Ale House, Cibus took baby steps to get to where it is today – a fully-fledged and much-praised Italian restaurant and bar on Levenshulme high street.

Inspire Cafe is an inclusive, relaxed gem of a community cafe housed in a former church in Levenshulme. It serves breakfasts, light lunches, and homemade cake during the day, with occasional pop-ups from local street food traders (with local beers) in the evening.

Isca is a natural wine bar and shop on an unassuming street in Levenshulme, brought to you by Caroline Dubois (sommelier at Where The Light Gets In) and Isobel Jenkins (Seasons Eatings supper club).

Jandol is a well-loved, kitsch and colourful Lebanese restaurant and baklava bakery in Levensulme.

No round-up of Levenshulme’s social spaces could exclude The Klondyke Club AKA The Levenshulme Bowling and Social Club. This century-old social club was originally a bowling alley and oddly the name comes from the news of the influx of gold-rush migrators from America to northern Canada’s Klondike region. In 2019 The Committee Room reopened as a speakeasy-style bar.

Levenshulme Bakery has been knocking up wallet-friendly and super fresh Turkish bread, kebabs and other light lunches for the local community for years.

Nordie Bar is a dog-friendly neighbourhood bar with a focus on coffee, craft beer and cocktails.

Overdraught MCR opened its doors in October 2019 with a name that’s a cheeky nod to the previous incarnation of the venue as a TSB bank.

Ask a local for directions in Levy and there’s a high chance they will use the Royal Nawaab as a reference point. This Pakistani restaurant is housed in a vast, three-storey venue that hosts a continuous stream of ostentatious weddings upstairs and has an immense public dining room downstairs which is often packed to the rafters. Apparently, this well-lubricated machine can comfortably feed more than a thousand people in one evening.

Another CAMRA award-winning boozer on Stockport Road to add to Levenshulme’s enviable drinking scene. Station Hop is a gorgeous, colourful little bar stocked full of interesting cask and keg ales, cans and more. Sip on a stroopwaffel porter from Blackjack, a CBRB/Northern Monk collab yuzu IPA or maybe a rhubarb and oolong saison from By The River Brew Co.

Open since summer 2018, The Talleyrand is an arty and eccentric little bar with a packed programme of live music, DJs, poetry, comedy, theatre, film, and art exhibitions. It takes its name from an area of East Levenshulme that was originally named in honour of French diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord.

Trove Levenshulme has been going strong since 2011. The main draw is its fantastic bread, which forms the basis for its breakfast menu.