Manchester restaurants: the biggest new openings of 2024

Founder’s Hall is a smartly-refurbished pub with an enviable position on Albert Square. It serves up comforting pub food and a vast range of beers.

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 Deansgate Bar & Grill is a confident operation with prime grass-fed British beef and popular classics. The menu veers towards traditional rather than adventurous but great wines and well-aged, matured steaks mean that doesn’t matter. When you’re serving juicy marbled rib eye that everyone loves, what is there to complain about?

Piccolino Grande Wilmslow is an elegant and glamorous restaurant with an airy open-plan design, a Tuscan terrace and luxurious furnishings. Service is excellent and a meal here always feels special.

Skof is the first restaurant from chef Tom Barnes who, as head chef at Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume, helped it win its third Michelin star. 

Sora Manchester is a rooftop bar and restaurant serving up sushi, Pan Asian small plates and views across the city’s impressive Victorian neo-Gothic architecture.

Archie’s Atomic is a neon pink roller rink from the local burger and shake supremos. With a giant glitterball and a colour scheme that would make even Barbie wince, it is very on-brand. The American diner goes disco.

Handsome subterranean restaurant Blacklock Manchester is the first northern opening from this London-based restaurant group. 

Cantaloupe is a simple yet brilliant Modern European bistro. The food is unfussy but with a team who have worked at Where The Light Gets In, Climat, The Creameries and The French, it’s no surprise that it’s also precise, achieving the almost unbelievable with humble and restrained ingredients.

Caravan Manchester is a 2024 opening from a small London chain started by three New Zealanders who settled in the UK a decade ago and decided to start roasting coffee.

That business has grown, as has the restaurant side, and for their first location outside London, they chose the St John’s district of Manchester, within the grounds of the iconic Granada TV studios

This is the first Manchester opening from the Flat Iron chain whose mission is to bring accessible steak to everyone, without compromising on flavour or ethics.

Named after the owner’s kids, Leo and Rubes is a neighbourhood cafe from the folks behind The Black Friar. It’s all about fresh, healthy, and comforting food, whipped up from scratch by head chef Morgan Lane (formerly with Pot Kettle Black).

Louis is the next big thing from Adam and Drew Jones, the brothers behind Tattu and Fenix but it’s something very different to both. Modelled on a glamorous New York of yesteryear, Louis is the sort of place you expect to see Frank Sinatra propping up the bar with a martini in hand.

Eagerly awaited fine-dining restaurant Maya opened with local chef Gabe Lea at the helm but by the end of 2024, he’d done a switcheroo with Sean Moffat over at Edinburgh Castle.

Medlock Canteen is an informal all-day place but despite its casual name, it’s a quality food spot. The menu is simple. Bistro classics aren’t faffed about with, they’re just done brilliantly. Jay Rayner is a big fan.

Momo Shop is The Little Yeti rebranded with more of a DIY pop-punk dumpling vibe. It’s an establishment of the ‘limited menu but executed very well’ variety, which is more common in Asia than over here, where ‘all things to all people’ is perhaps too often attempted.

Onda, or Onda Pasta Bar, to give it its full name, is a new Italian restaurant at Circle Square. It isn’t new exactly – with pop-ups at Exhibition amongst other places, Onda has already made a name for itself. With stints in impressive kitchens like Chez Bruce and Claridges, Chef Sam Astley Dean isn’t exactly a street food trader made good, either.

Porta Didsbury is the fourth instalment in Ben and Joe Wright’s North West micro-empire of tapas bars. The new restaurant is in Simon Rimmer’s old Greens restaurant and although the place is unrecognisable the name must have an influence because the walls are a cosy dark olive green. There’s more meat though; pork belly and butter bean is a standout special.

The Rat & Pigeon may be Manchester’s newest pub, but it’s an oldie too. The team behind the much-loved Crown and Kettle have taken over Mother Macs.

Side Street is another one of those all-day creative spaces that segue (relatively) seamlessly between morning coffee and late-night events. Whether you’re tapping on your laptop or tapping your toes at a musical happening. Side Street has the right atmosphere for both.

Tender is an elegant restaurant in Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel. The food lives up to the grandeur. Headed by Chef Niall Keating, it wouldn’t be a surprise if his cooking here earned him some more of those Michelin stars. He’s on his way to becoming a culinary constellation.