The best brunches in Manchester

The best brunches in Manchester are a mixed bunch. Whether you’re here on a shopping trip or recovering from the night before, side-step the bottomless Prosecco menus and take a seat at one of the city’s brunch time champions – below, find the very best places for a morning feast.

Gooey Bakery and Cafe, Manchester

Gooey Bakery and Cafe, Manchester

Gooey

Yes, there is avocado toast here – with chia and turmeric brioche as its canvas, ramped up with pickled beetroot and the sort of soft-boiled egg that resembles a Gauguin sunrise – but the main event at Gooey is the French toast. Made Hong Kong-style from layers of brioche and filled with dulce de leche, it’s almost monumental on the plate, a blob of salted butter melting on sun-tanned flanks that have been photographed almost as many times as the Love Island cast. Gooey, as the name suggests, is a sugar-filled hit of Instagrammable good looks in the Northern Quarter, with Keith Haring prints, cascading plants and modernist white seating and usually a queue waiting patiently outside. “Manchester got the good good” posted Lizzo when she came here in 2023 and ordered hash browns and the tofu sando – another menu classic, made from fluffy shokupan bread baked inhouse alongside the donuts and cookies, while the drinks menu ranges from cold-pressed orange, carrot and ginger and strawberry matcha to no-nonsense Yorkshire tea.

Address: 103 High Street, Manchester
Website: gooeybakery.co.uk

Pip, Treehouse Hotel

Pip, Treehouse Hotel

The Treehouse Hotel bloomed in city-centre Manchester in 2025, taking a brutalist Seventies building near the cathedral and softening its edges with a biophiliac design that resembles Narnia – except with more cuckoo clocks. The laidback ground-floor restaurant showcases local chef Mary-Ellen McTague’s considerable talents, plucking ingredients and inspiration from around the North-west: settle here for breakfast and there’s Bury black pudding alongside homemade beans, and freshly baked oven-bottom muffins with bacon, egg or sausage – though for a real northern speciality you should go for the Derbyshire oatcakes, which are actually closer to a pancake than a crumbly biscuit and make a substantial base for ham, cheddar and two fried eggs. The brunch menu avoids the clichés, swerving the avocado but adding a ploughman’s into the mix and – drum roll – a crab and lobster thermidor pie with triple-cooked chips that will set anyone up for the rest of the day. Shame not to see Mary-Ellen’s signature, jenga-like split-pea chips on the menu, with their highly dippable mushroom ketchup – but then you can come back for dinner for those.

Address: Blackfriars Street, Manchester
Website: treehousehotels.com

Evelyn’s

Quite the Northern Quarter institution, Evelyn’s has been brunching out on its reputation since it opened in 2015, with the neighbourhood’s requisite stripped-back brick walls paired with a potting-shed vibe from the green foliage while a charcoal oven smokes to one side. It evolves into a small-plates restaurant in the evening but the brunch menu is available all day, with ingredients zhuzhed up with a roll-call of spice-route ingredients – owner Sax Arshad grew up in Rusholme, where his parents run Curry Mile legend Mughli, but the dishes here veer more towards the Middle East and North Africa, with za’atar oyster mushrooms and merguez sausages on the full English plate, and favourites including shakshuka and Turkish eggs, along with a fried-chicken sando with kimchi for a satisfyingly piquant kick of crunch and chew. The signature bloody Mary is infused with nori, and you’ll see espresso Martinis flying off the tables well before noon – less shouty are alcohol-free serves including a lip-smacking Paloma and iced banana matcha latte.