The best private dining rooms in Manchester and Liverpool

Liverpool’s award-winning, fine-dining restaurant The Art School brings together inventive Modern British cooking and an impressive historic setting.

The Art School Cellars is part of the renowned Art School restaurant but it is also an atmospheric destination in its own right. Head to this charming, subterranean bar for a pre-dinner cocktail, a post-prandial port and cheeseboard, or make it the focus of your visit. The Art School Cellars offers a lighter menu than the upstairs restaurant but it’s no less delightful for that.

If you feel it’s time to spice up your life, look no further than this Northern Quarter indie, where the main offer is ‘kebabs worth sitting down for’. Yep, BAB by name, ‘babs by nature, but that’s not doing the menu full justice – there are also meze small plates to mix and match, skewers and shawarmas, and non-babs such as an epic surf & turf spread.

The Black Friar stood empty and unloved for almost 20 years before reopening in summer 2021 after a substantial renovation project. Now a modern British restaurant and a traditional pub, it has two distinct settings with menus to match.

Dakota Grill Manchester is the work of former Malmaison owner, Ken McCollough and it is as dark-hued and handsome as the successful boutique hotel chain. It’s an inviting place with flickering candlelight, very retro-sexy – sure to be the setting for many a first date.

The focus at Dakota is on steaks which are very good – all grass-fed, 28 day-aged, hand-cut Aberdeenshire beef cooked over hot coals.

Grand Pacific is the work of Living Ventures and it easily outshines its sibling venues in terms of pure glamour. Not in a big chandeliers, glass and chrome Spinningfields way, but with a decadent blend of colonial Raffles-style grandeur and some of the best of the city’s Victorian architecture.

The MUSU Collection is a group of innovative modern Japanese dining experiences, all under one roof. With three AA rosettes, this is the cutting edge of Manchester’s restaurant scene.

Malmaison Manchester Piccadilly Bar & Grill isn’t just for overnight guests, its reputation for cocktails, quality beef and a buzzing atmosphere mean it’s respected as a restaurant in its own right.

With its terrace overlooking Albert Square and Manchester Town Hall, and a beautiful interior featuring a 40-seater private dining room, an open kitchen, and an oyster bar, Piccolino Caffé Grande Manchester is a real destination restaurant. (And, notably, it’s one that doesn’t price people out of the experience.)

With its six foot chandelier and gold leaf ceiling Restaurant Bar & Grill Liverpool is one of the city’s most spectacular dining settings. A £500k refurbishment in 2021 brought to life the original features of this Grade II Listed heritage building. Now it’s one of the most photogenic backdrops in Liverpool, and the food’s not half bad too.

There’s a bonhomie and a sense of welcome at Vetch, marking it out as a friendly neighbourhood restaurant and simultaneously one of the best fine dining establishments in Liverpool.

Manchester’s highest restaurant, bar and terrace 20 Stories was the opening of 2018 and still maintains its status as one of the city’s most popular place to eat, drink, be snapped and be seen.

Banyan in Manchester’s Corn Exchange has something for everyone and one of the best outdoor drinking and dining spots in the city.

The Blues Kitchen Manchester is the first opening outside the capital for Columbo Group, which also owns the Jazz Cafe chain. And while we always enjoy treating cut-and-paste transplants from London with a healthy dose of scepticism, this one serves Manchester’s food (and music) scene well.

At the point Lark Lane tips out onto busy Aigburth Road, you’ll find one of Liverpool’s best churrascaria, the cosy Churrasco Steakhouse, where top-notch British meat and homemade recipes are given the unique lava steak stone treatment, seeing you cook your own tea.

For many people, Argentinian restaurant Gaucho Manchester is the destination in the city for very good steak paired with very good wine. Housed in a converted Methodist church on Deansgate, with an open kitchen, and the original church organ still in-situ, it’s also known as one of Manchester’s best-looking spaces for dining.

Hawksmoor Liverpool opened in the beautiful Grade II-listed India Buildings, to much excitement in late 2022.

The Ivy Manchester is an exuberant over-the-top place that’s perfect for glamming up and going out. The décor is wild yet smart and service is smooth and professional. The roof garden is a must.

There’s an abundance about The Ivy with the costumed doorman, and the levels and levels of fun: The Ivy Asia; The Brasserie; The Ivy Roof Garden; the lurid floors; the lacquered screens; the mirrored central bar. It all adds up to a sense of occasion, a place where dining out is something special, something to dress up for.

King Street Townhouse is a 4-star luxury hotel in the heart of Manchester City Centre. It’s well known for its spa facilities – including a very special infinity pool with views of the city from the top floor of the building.

Born in the early 2000s, The London Carriage Works is Liverpool’s original Modern British restaurant. Driven by a passion for Mersey produce and molecular gastronomy, founding head chef Paul Askew (now of the Art School) pushed an award-winning formula at London Carriage Works for years – and current head chef Mike Kenyon follows suit.

Lucky Cat by Gordon Ramsay is the first restaurant that the famed TV chef has decided to open in the city of Manchester, despite already having opened Bread Street Kitchen & Bar in Liverpool last year. 

Panoramic 34 was the UK’s highest restaurant when it opened in 2008, and although others have since taken that title, it still offers an impressive vantage point with a 360-degree view of Liverpool, the Mersey, and beyond to Wales.