The Gallery Café

Good selection of hot drinks and pastries
In the sensitively renovated interior of the neo-​Classical municipal art gallery, you’ll find a café that does exactly what all the big coffee chains do, but with a local flair. Locally made cakes, including Boddingtons fruit loaf, soft drinks and beers from regional brewers sit alongside the restaurant’s offerings of hot and cold meals, made with local and regional produce.
It’s not the most beautiful gallery café you’ll ever visit — for that you need to go the V&A’s art nouveau tea rooms in London — but you’ll get a Mancunian welcome unique to this lovely old building.

I have had afternoon tea at the Gallery café a few times and the cakes are winners. The brownie even gets my thumbs up and I am a brownie snob. Sadly I can’t say the same for the hot chocolate that I had today. It was weak and tasted like slightly flavoured warmed milk. So stick to tea and grab a slice of something and you’ll be happy as Larry!

Since the refurb in December, the Gallery Café has become one of the best places to get a coffee and read the paper in Manchester. Whereas things were a little hectic before, the new café is split in two with a small self-​service area on one side and a larger open diner on the other.
The small café is great for grabbing a sandwich or a flapjack on your wander round the gallery, and is still pretty pricey (as most eateries and shops in galleries are). The large café has been transformed into a light, airy and open eating space with a relaxed but energetic atmosphere. There is a full adult and children’s menu which offers some lovely freshly made dishes including rich soups and zingy salads. The Gallery Café is also a great place for tea and cake with some lovely scones and sponges on offer.
A good place to meet friends, take the parents or just have a minute to yourself, the Gallery Café is a lovely little spot and well worth a look.
.

The Café at Manchester Art Gallery was refurbished and the layout was changed just before Christmas and it now offers a waiter service. This has transformed the café into much more stylish eatery.
The café is a light airy space with whitewashed walls and strategically placed pot plants, and although often very busy feel quite calm and serene. The waiter service works brilliantly and all of the staff and friendly, polite and attentive.
When we ordered our food arrived extremely quickly; speaking as someone who is always hungry, this was an absolute bonus! I chose a vegetable terrine (mainly because I confused «terrine with «tagine») so was somewhat disappointed when a cold vegetable pâté turned up instead of a warming, Moroccan spiced stew. Although beautifully presented, the food was a bit bland and tasteless but even more disappointingly, was just not big enough. The meal was tiny, they had very much aimed in for the nouveaux cuisine and achieved it on the presentation front. But as the food wasn’t tasty and the portion size was practically non-​existent; I can’t deny that I felt extremely short-​changed for my £7.95.
Nice to go to if you’re at the gallery anyway, but probably not worth going out of your way for.