Mowgli | Corn Exchange

Purveyor of healthy and often vegan Indian street food and home cooking, former barrister Nisha Katona’s Corn Exchange Mowgli was the second after launching on Liverpool’s Bold Street in October 2014, so this is Manchester’s original branch and technically pre-chain.

It features airy inside space, inside outside space, courtesy a terrace in the food-centric arcade, and outside outside space, with tables on the cobbled pedestrian street facing the cathedral. Food wise, think mix and match small plates. The yoghurt chat bombs, vegan temple dahl mopped up with fluffy puri flatbread, and chickpea-battered gunpowder chicken are the stuff of legend, but then the staff recommend the Mowgli paneer while the house lamb curry follows Nisha’s dad’s own recipe. Take the pain out of picking – let’s talk tiffins; those stackable tins that unpack into a full meal. Each with four tiers, there are three choices of “food roulette, total pot luck”: vegan school tiffin, Indian school tiffin and office worker’s tiffin, which contains “meat, veg & carb jeopardy chosen by chef as it is in India”.

We’re sure you’ll find room for a smoked cardamom old fashioned or even sorbets and ice cream; add gulab jamun doughballs (the equivalent, we’re told, of sticky toffee pudding) or chocolate brownies at your own discretion.