An up to date guide to Bottomless Brunch in Manchester

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 Pen and Pencil is the Northern Quarter’s cool all-day hangout, modelled on the New York bar of the same name popular with the city’s journalists and ad men in the 1950s and 1960s. It has a reputation for great cocktails, quality food and an atmosphere that makes it stand out from nearby imitators.

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 Alchemist on New York Street is the second of three Manchester venues and nicely turned out, with bags of space and plenty of gold. And while base metals don’t magically become that precious commodity here, theatre is promised at The Alchemist.

Banyan in Manchester’s Spinningfields is a sleek and chic take on all day drinking and dining.

From bottomless brunches every day to late-night fizz, there’s always something happening. These hybrid anytime venues can be a difficult act to pull off but Banyan gets the balance right. It’s the sort of place where you can just as easily call in for a coffee as have big celebration meal.

The Bay Horse Tavern, to give it its full moniker, describes itself as “a modern take on a Victorian Pub” and, with its dark hues and warm woods, puttering candles and kitschy knick-knacks, and range of gins, craft beers and “other libations”, it may well straddle the eras.

Bunny Jackson’s touts itself as a dive bar and, while there is indeed ‘cold beer, frozen margaritas and a lot of whisky’, you can still line your stomachs as burgers, bar snacks and BJ’s wings are served every day from noon until nine.

Describing itself as a full-time party bar and part-time pizza parlour, Crazy Pedro’s is hot on super-chilled drinks, from frozen margaritas to ice cold beers. It’s also the place to head if you haven’t settled the Hawaiian-pizza-isn’t-a-real-pizza argument.

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.

Named after the first recorded name for Ancoats, Elnecot (meaning ‘lonely cottages’) takes its influence from historical cooking methods with lots of fermenting, a little foraging and a few nose-to-tail dishes.

Found in the former E & A Auto Services garage depot on Swan Street, Firehouse is the sister restaurant to Ramona’s Detroit-style pizzeria. It’s part restaurant, part bar and part performance venue where tables are available to book for dinner and “after dark drinking”. The space is open and airy with a real laid-back feel. White shutters, bleached brick and glitter balls hanging from the high ceiling complete the chilled out party ambience.

Established in 2017 in what was then the outer reaches of the Northern Quarter, Fress remains resplendent in chic black-and-white tiles with splashes of shiny gold, although the culinary focus has shifted from fancy à la carte evenings to fun all day.

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.

Gusto Italian Manchester may be the jewel in ever-expanding chain’s crown, even if the menu is the same everywhere from Heswall to Edinburgh. It’s a very polished affair with a definite Art Deco feel. This is a place that seems designed for good times and the service is slick.

The new wave of burgers came crashing over the food scene and then receded, leaving closures and acid reflux. So surely it stands that those who remain are the best at what they do?

First and foremost a bar and nightclub, Impossible’s Instagram account is filled with a bevvy of posing beauties enjoying cocktails and wine in the velvet-clad club and out on the sun-trap of a terrace that overlooks Deansgate’s Great Northern Warehouse.

This upmarket Spanish restaurant, tucked away just off St Ann’s Square, is the definition of a hidden gem.

Manahatta is a New York-inspired cocktail bar on Deansgate. It’s well known for its party atmosphere, great drinks and bottomless brunches. The food menu focuses on American classics like burgers, dogs and BBQ chicken as well as healthier options like the superfood burger and the lean green powerbowl.

Let’s get this party started… but not without lining your stomach first, fun fans. With tapas-style dishes for sharing as well as more substantial sit-down dinners, along with signature cocktails “designed to inspire”, Ménagerie is an immersive dining and drinking experience.

The Northern Quarter has never been short of Instagrammable spots with its litany of graffitied walls and shop fronts but bar and cafe, On the Hush, has taken the style inside its doors, bringing a mix of pretty floral drapery and inner-city spray-painted style to its interior.

Predominantly a pizzeria, Ramona incorporates a bakery, margarita bar, coffee counter, stage and Firehouse restaurant, and is found in the rollershuttered ex-E & A Auto Services garage depot on Swan Street, complete with a tree-lined forecourt, now the campfire beer garden.

Bringing new life to Hale village is relaxed restaurant and bar Riva, which cleverly scoops up trade from morning till night with it’s catch-all menu of brunches, lunches, dinners and cocktails.

Runyon’s restaurant at Hotel Brooklyn claims to be somewhere you’ll be “overfed and overindulged” with a menu of British classics that has been sprinkled with some “Big Apple” swagger. Just like the hotel, the style of the restaurant is designed with a New York state of mind. Leather seats, tiled flooring and thick granite tables give it a solid, industrial feel.

Named after the rowdy 1980 album by The Clash, bar with food Sandinista is one part wild Latin spirit and one part punk rock.   

Tampopo Albert Square is the original venue in this Manchester-born chain from restaurateur David Fox. It was here that they devised and tweaked their winning formula of fast, fresh and affordable East Asian food served in an informal, canteen-style environment, ideal for quick lunches or evening meals with groups of friends.

WowYauChow is a ‘British Chinese’ from accountant turned restaurateur Henry Yau which has become a firm favourite in Alty. The food is east meets west: Chinese classics with a contemporary British slant, served as small plates to encourage sharing, tasting and hopefully less waste.

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.

When a restaurant’s menu features lobster dynamite, you pretty much know straightaway that it might not be everyone’s cup of chai latte, and Yours, with its special red carpet-style Insta corridor and “dress to impress” reservation confirmation, isn’t going to appeal to style slouches.