It’s getting kind of close to Valentine’s Day now, but you don’t like the thought of giving in to a big Hallmark holiday by forking out for set menus, roses or balloons. That’s cool, we can help.
Here’s our list of the best restaurants in Manchester for Valentine’s Day 2024 – places that are romantic but not soppy, sexy but not saccharine, and open in the run-up to, and days after Valentine’s Day as well.
Want more ideas? Have a look at our Manchester date night restaurants and alternative Valentine’s nights out.
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Book Now Manchester City Centre
The Black Friar
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.
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Book Now Northern Quarter
Dakota Grill Manchester
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.
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Book Now Northern Quarter
Evuna Manchester NQ
The second city centre Evuna, open since 2013, bagsies a corner spot in the Northern Quarter that provides the outward-facing window seats with a prime people-watching position. Wood panelling, Moorish tiles and rustic blackboards offer atmosphere, perfect for cosying up over those authentic small plates.
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Book Now Manchester City Centre
Grand Pacific
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.
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Book Now Manchester City Centre
Piccolino Caffe Grande Manchester
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.)
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Manchester City Centre
10 Tib Lane
10 Tib Lane was one of the brave new openings of summer 2021; a time when securing staff and supplies, never mind diners, was an ongoing challenge for everyone. If you can launch a new restaurant in that environment, you must be doing something very right – so it’s no surprise that three years later, it’s still going strong.
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Spinningfields
20 Stories
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.
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Northern Quarter
63 Degrees
Ran by husband and wife team Eric and Florence Moreau, 63 Degrees is a classic chef-proprieteur French restaurant with roots in the refined cuisine of their home city of Paris.
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Manchester City Centre
Adam Reid at The French
Culinary rock and roll from Simon Rogan’s protege, Adam Reid, and head chef Blaise Murphy, formerly of Mana. Enjoy fine-dining in Grade II Listed Victorian surrounds – with a side order of Mancunian attitude.
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Book Now Spinningfields
Australasia
Cool Pacific Rim fusion fare for the fashion set. Australasia combines a sense of theatre with professionalism and culinary wizardry, making any occasion feel special.
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Chorlton
Bar San Juan
Beech Road’s Bar San Juan is almost always bursting at the seams with customers. This unassuming little tapas bar is one of those hidden gems of almost cult-like status that locals just love to recommend. Rightly so.
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Whitefield
Campo Blanco
Campo Blanco means “white field” in Spanish, so it comes as no surprise that this restaurant is the go-to place for tapas in the vicinity, serving classic Catalan-style small plates along with dishes inspired by other cuisines from around the Mediterranean region.
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Book Now Levenshulme
Cibus
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.
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Manchester City Centre
Climat
The first thing you notice when you step into fine-dining restaurant Climat is the view. Situated on the roof of Blackfriars House, you’re just above the city skyline, close enough to see the details of the architecture, but high enough to feel like you’re in the clouds.
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Prestwich
Cuckoo
Like the interloping bird that gives it its name, Cuckoo was an odd-one-out when it first opened in Prestwich back in 2013. Since then a whole flock of likeminded, indie cafe-bars have landed in this suburb, but Cuckoo is still the favourite for many.
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Manchester City Centre
El Gato Negro Manchester
El Gato Negro is an upmarket Manc-Spanish fusion restaurant that really, really works. Originally from Yorkshire, chef Simon Shaw has created an indulgent, three-storey church to his passion for the best in Spanish food and wine.
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Manchester City Centre
Gaucho Manchester
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.
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Manchester City Centre
Gusto Italian Manchester
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.
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Ancoats
The Jane Eyre
The Jane Eyre is a self-styled ‘neighbourhood bar’ offering seasonal food, classic cocktails and local beers. Presided over by Eyre siblings Jonny and Joe, it is, mildly disappointingly, not a Gothic homage to the Yorkshire based tragic-heroine but actually named after their late mum.
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Spinningfields
Masons
Nestled in the Grade II Listed former Freemasons Hall, Masons Restaurant and Bar serves retro fine-dining fare in princely surrounds.
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Sale
The Perfect Match
New opening The Perfect Match on the traffic-heavy A56 in Sale isn’t the easiest place to get to but it’s well worth the effort.
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Spinningfields
Sexy Fish
Sexy Fish is no mere minnow in the UK dining scene. It’s brought to you by Caprice Holdings, the group behind some of London’s most glam dining spots. Think of it as more of a humongous mermaid – beautiful and ever so slightly improbable.
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Manchester City Centre
Tast
Catalan restaurant Tast brings the fiercely independent spirit of north-eastern Spain to your table courtesy head chef Paco Pérez – holder of six Michelin stars – and his passionate team, who run eight acclaimed restaurants around the world.
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Spinningfields
Tattu Manchester
Located in the heart of the Spinningfields business district, Tattu Manchester is an Instagrammer’s dream. Think penumbral lighting, body art-inspired cocktails and a full-size cherry blossom tree with hand-sewn silk petals. You’d be forgiven for expecting such opulent surroundings to outshine the food. Not so.
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Hale
Victor’s
Victor’s is an upscale neighbourhood restaurant. Of course it is, it’s in Hale. Locals call in for everything from brunch to dinner and cocktails and pretty much everything in between.
There’s a global menu with an emphasis on Japanese cuisine. Apart from sushi and sashimi – of which there is a good selection for somewhere that doesn’t specialise in raw fish – you’ll find dishes like seabass and scallop ceviche, Caesar salad, baked stone bass with lemongrass and pak choi and steaks from the grill.
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Manchester City Centre
Wood & Company
With its disguised entrance and back street location, Wood & Co has the feel of a secret speakeasy only frequented by those in the know. The unmarked door is on South King Street, in between Cross Street and Deansgate. Descend the steps and you’ll find yourself in a tiled, sleek space centred on a marble bar that stretches the length of the room.