Best Tasting Menus in Manchester
Two tasting menus in our guide hold Michelin stars: Skof in Piccadilly and mana in Ancoats & Beswick. The other menus on this list are in Deansgate, Whalley Range and the Northern Quarter.
Skof is Tom Barnes's menu in a textile warehouse, with a course at the open kitchen and an extensive wine list. mana is Simon Martin's multi-course menu, using British produce and Asian techniques, with sommelier-led service. In Deansgate, Adam Reid at the French pairs a set menu and tasting menu with an exceptional wine programme, and Higher Ground adds a tasting menu and natural wine.
Whalley Range holds the plant-based menus. The Walled Gardens Underground Restaurant serves 12 courses to eight guests and holds this list's Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence. Walled Garden Supper Club serves vegetarian micro-courses in a chef's home. Sampa, in the Northern Quarter, is a Brazilian-British chef's table with 12 seats.
How this list is chosen: Restaurants serving a tasting menu or omakase, listed alphabetically. Updated October 8, 2026.
Adam Reid at the French
Deep wine list
Occupying the Belle Époque dining room of Manchester's grade II-listed Midland Hotel, Adam Reid at The French translates northern English culinary tradition into a focused multi-course set menu. Reid's cooking draws on regional provenance, Sladesdown Farm duck, day-boat cod, Stichelton blue cheese, within a darkly romantic, mirrored interior that frames the meal as occasion. Holders of a 2025 Michelin Plate and ranked 604th in the Opinionated About Dining Europe list.
Higher Ground
Higher Ground operates from a corner of Faulkner House on New York Street, holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a place on Opinionated About Dining's European casual list. The kitchen draws much of its produce from Cinderwood, the team's own Cheshire market garden, and serves sharing plates that run from air-dried culatello to Scottish turbot. It is one of the more considered mid-price options in Manchester's city centre.
mana
1 Michelin star
Mana ended Manchester's 40-year wait for a Michelin star in 2019, one year after opening in Ancoats. Chef Simon Martin runs a multi-course tasting menu built on British produce and Asian technique, served in a double-height open-plan space where the kitchen and dining room share the same floor. The 'Complete' menu runs to £175 per person, with lunch available from £70.
Sampa
Sampa sits in Manchester's Northern Quarter, a low-key restaurant where ingredient sourcing shapes the menu and the city's artsy fringe keeps the atmosphere relaxed. It operates in the same creative corridor as 10 Tib Lane and Another Hand, where format discipline matters more than volume.
Skof
1 Michelin star
In a reborn textile warehouse, Skof in Manchester pairs Tom Barnes’s precision cooking with a relaxed, music-led vibe—think tasting menus that bridge local produce and global nuance, closing with the heartfelt “Barney’s Tiramisu.”
The Walled Gardens Underground Restaurant
Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence
Eddie Shepherd's Whalley Range underground restaurant operates on a strict limited-capacity format, sending twelve plant-based courses through a sequence of technical precision that has drawn visiting chefs from across Europe. Ranked #520 in Opinionated About Dining's Top Restaurants in Europe for 2025, it sits in a narrow tier of serious vegetarian tasting menus in the UK. Book well ahead, seats are genuinely scarce.
Walled Garden Supper Club
A supper club format pushing vegetarian cooking into technically serious territory, Walled Garden sits outside Manchester's city centre in Barton and draws a loyal following prepared to travel for it. Chef Eddie Shepherd operates in a tier acknowledged by Opinionated About Dining's 2024 European ranking, placing this among the continent's noted addresses for plant-based fine dining.
Planning tasting menus in Manchester
- Which tasting menus on this list have Michelin stars?
- Two restaurants on this list hold Michelin stars. Skof, in Piccadilly, holds a Michelin star for 2026, and serves a tasting menu with an extensive wine list, including a course served by the chef at the open kitchen. mana, in Ancoats & Beswick, holds a Michelin star for 2026, and serves a multi-course tasting menu of British produce cooked with Asian techniques, and a sommelier-led list.
- Which venue on this list holds a Wine Spectator award?
- The Walled Gardens Underground Restaurant, in Whalley Range, is the venue on this list with a Wine Spectator award. It holds a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence dated 2025, and that award is the only Wine Spectator award among the tasting menus on this list.
- Which neighbourhoods are these tasting menus in?
- The tasting menus on this list are in Piccadilly, Ancoats & Beswick, Deansgate, Whalley Range and the Northern Quarter. Piccadilly has Skof. Ancoats & Beswick has mana. Deansgate has Higher Ground and Adam Reid at the French. Whalley Range has The Walled Gardens Underground Restaurant and Walled Garden Supper Club. The Northern Quarter has Sampa.
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