Taunton Restaurant Guide

This “fabulous” veteran of vegan cuisine in Manchester pleases all-comers – “I don’t miss meat at all when I’m eating here, the food’s that tasty” – and has its origins in a Gujarati grocery store in Ashton more than 50 years ago, when PG Sachdev and his wife Lilawat (Lily) started selling homemade snacks and sweets to families watching Indian films at the cinema across the road. Several expansions later, it’s a slick modern operation run by their grandchildren.

“Great to have a restaurant of this quality in the North West” – Simon Martin won his place in the history books in 2019 when he ended Manchester’s 40 years of pain without a Michelin star with his creation of this award-winning Ancoats champion. By design, there’s a “chilled” ambience created by the large space, where chefs and diners co-mingle naturally as a result of the open plan layout incorporating the kitchen (to ensure that ‘traditional barriers are broken in physical and thoughtful senses’). The cuisine is characterised by its “interesting and innovative approach with some unusual and unique flavours” and enhanced by the “superb” service. Of course, it’s not super-cheap, but no-one seems to begrudge this. The ‘Complete’ tasting menu is £175 per person, with a cut down ‘Extracts’ version available for £110 per person (and at lunch there’s a menu for £70 per person).

“Surrounded by regenerated mills and terraced houses, from the days of the industrial revolution”, Richard Withington’s “trendy but likeable” Ancoats favourite “serves small plates to be shared” at “a perfect pace” in a “relaxed, modern dining room” and is nowadays in our Top-100 most commented-on UK restaurants in our annual diners’ poll outside London. “The kitchen knows how to cook and manage to consistently keep the standard up” – “the conception and execution of each dish is faultless” and the whole enterprise “manages to feel both forward looking and familiar, while offering exceptional value for money”. (“I was made so welcome as a solo diner that I wouldn’t hesitate to eat here alone again, but will definitely be bringing friends!”).

2022 Review: “Busy”, huge and gaudy Cantonese that sits over the Wing Yip Oriental supermarket, where you can choose from over 300 dishes on the menu. It’s one of the few places left in town (in the country?) where dim sum still comes on trolleys.

This Ancoats spin-off from tapas-champion El Gato Negro is “good on its own terms, and a model of consistency”, with Portuguese influences from Porto-born head chef Carlos Gomes. “Set-price menus are good value”, including the ‘Tipsy Tapas’ offer of three dishes and 90 minutes of unlimited booze for £40. Top Menu Tip – “salt cod fritters are a highlight”.

Forget Napoli, forget NYC – for “fabulous pizzas” look no further than Ancoats, where you’ll find the “original branch and still hands-down the best” of the brand that has taken the UK by storm in recent years (2025 openings in Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge and West Bridgford, Notts brought the total to 35 branches). Jim Morgan & Kate Wilson immortalised their dog Rudy when they launched here in 2015, joining Manchester’s Mission Mars stable a couple of years later to fund expansion. Top Menu Tip – don’t fill up on pizza because “the Kinder Bueno cheesecake is to die for (if there’s any left)”.

Amongst the newly cleaned and polished dark satanic mills of Ancoats sits The Edinburgh Castle – an early 19th-century pub rescued and skillfully restored with a large bar on the ground floor, and a dining room on the first floor serving pub food with a thoroughbred touch. Try the Sunday roast – “this pub has never done it better in its 200 years!”

2023 Review: This vast street-food and entertainment concept accommodating up 1,000 visitors in an old freight depot by Piccadilly station is simply “another world” – “a mind-blowing-sized venue and organisation” where “the food is not really the main attraction” – although there is plenty of sufficient quality to earn high ratings, from 15 different restaurants and bars in an “eclectic mix” that ranges from Voodoo Rays pizza, Brad Carter’s One Stop Döner Bar and asador grills from Baratxuri to tacos from Madre.

“It’s basically a food hall” where you dine in “noisy” surrounds at communal seating, but this converted Victorian venue (the name is a clever inversion of Mayor Mackie, who opened it in 1858 as a fresh produce market) is a “really great place” nonetheless (and hugely well regarded locally). The offering has extended since it launched in 2017, and “you could come here many times and not eat the same thing” – working your way patiently from Pico’s tacos to Honest Crust’s sourdough pizzas, via New Wave Ramen and a craft beer from Blackjack Brewery.

“Busy and buzzy” as the Northern Quarter in which it sits (particularly if you sit at the “really cool” bar), this decade-old corner spot is, for one reporter, “as good a tapas bar as I can imagine”, offering premium Spanish draft beer to wash it all down. There are now a trio of links in the chain: a second Manchester branch in Deansgate, and one in Knutsford, 14 miles south-west of town (the Altrincham spin-off sadly having shuttered in late 2023).

“Almost like a speakeasy to get into”, and based in a railway arch, but once inside you’ll find a “totally charming place” that makes for “the perfect cheap ’n’ cheerful night out”. The MO is “fabulous” and “slightly bonkers”: spätzle (a Swabian, noodle-like pasta dish) is the star of the show, with William Sitwell in his June 2025 review – one of many journos to rave about what he called this “Manchester institution” – claiming that “all seems well with the world as you guzzle them”; also on the menu, other “great-value Polish and Eastern European food”, all of which is “wonderfully presented” too. No wonder fans “love everything about this place”.