Best of MCR: City Centre Terraces

EARLIER this summer on a blazing Manchester morning, the Confidential team entered the office to find a small olive brown Chiffchaff had flown in through the window warbling a merry summer ditty... something from Disney. Gordo ate it. But the message was clear, summer was 'ere.

If flesh is what you're after when the sun comes out - and who isn't - you'll do no better than Spinningfields Lawns. It's a beach of a lawn. Tits, tipples and tats. 

So we thought to ourselves, 'It's high time we revised our hugely successful 'Best Of City Centre Terraces' from last summer. Our readers deserve to know the best outdoor spots for a summer knees up with their feet up.'

So we did. Here you have it...

(Here is an alphabetical - not ranked - list of the best outdoor/nearly outdoor drinking terraces the city centre has to offer).

Bruce's Bar and Terrace at Black Dog NWS

Bruce’s terrace up and out the back of Black Dog NWS is a light and airy affair. Adorned with a glass ceiling - just in case - Bruce’s has its own fully stocked bar and grill. The terrace has a number of sofas and an eclectic grouping of multi-styled multi-coloured little seating arrangements to kick back, soak it up and take in a match on the big screen. Down in the bowels of Black Dog there's plenty of pool tables and the Underdog club for when your day out becomes a night out.

11-13 New Wakefield Street, Manchester, M1 5NP, 0161 236 4899. More here.

Blackdog NWS

Briton's Protection 

This boozer isn’t just a jewel in the crown of the Manchester Pub scene; it’s the whopping great 170 carat Black Prince’s Ruby of the Manchester Pub scene. Steeped in over 200 years of history, this choice watering hole for generations worth of thinkers, grafters, thespians, philanderers, martyrs and all-round rapscallions also sports a quirky and mostly unnoticed beer terrace at its posterior. Granted, unlike many of our picks there’s no view to get giddy about, however, the Protection boasts over 300 whiskies and spanks the competition when it comes to pedigree and charm. Scorching suntrap too. 

50 Great Bridgewater Street, Mancester, M1 5LE. 0161 236 5895. @BPManchester

BP terrace

Dimitri’s Greek Restaurant

Hiding down an airy Victorian glass and iron arcade lies Dimitri’s leafy Grecian terrace. Not the finest spot in town for bronzing, what with the ceiling an all (it's a glass ceiling mind), but still a canny courtyard to scoff some mezes. Especially if, like us, you prefer your courtyards emblazoned with faux Grecian mosaics, green plastic patio furniture and the buzzing chitter-chatter of a mediterranean Bar Taverna.

Campfield Arcade, Tonman Street, Deansgate, Manchester, M3 4FN. 0161 839 3319. More here. 

Dimitri's 

Dukes 92

If city centre outdoor drinking terraces were late 70s wrestlers, Dukes 92 would be Giant Haystacks, or Big Daddy, one of the big fat ones anyway. It's widely known that when the sun comes out, at least half of Greater Manchester's 2.6 million people are already on their way down to Dukes and its neighbouring restaurant, Albert’s Shed (the rest are in Spinningfields). The bredth and bustle of this waterside terrace detracts attention away from just how handsome this corner of the Castlefield basin is. With its canals, lock gate, cobbled roads, stone bridge and charming lock house, this spot really is most comely, if bordering on hectic. Amazingly, for a terrace that has 4730 seats, there's rarely one without a bum.

18 Castle Street, Manchester, M3 4LZ. 0161 839 3522. Look here.

Dukes 92 

Grand Pacific

Essentially Australasia restaurant and bar squashed down, rolled up and rolled out upstairs. This is the first bar to break out onto Spinningfields doomed Avenue (the least shopped shopping street in the city), and certainly not the last. Give it a few years and that boulevard will all be food and drink, mark our words. The terrace here, a forest of bamboo and cushions with colonial (almost nautical) style seating beneath a white canopy, boasts delicate cocktails, high tea and the world's most powerful patio heaters. So hot are they, that once a camel mosied in, said 'f**k this', and mosied back on out.

1 The Avenue, Spinningfields, M3 3AP. 0161 831 0288. More here.

Grand Pacific

Hanging Ditch Wine Merchants

Whilst scouting out this little treasure an entirely respectable looking elderly chap informed me that this Hanging Ditch dating back to 1421 - on which this wine bar is built - was so called because this is where they used to hang outlaws and scallywags by the neck. The editor tells me this is utter nonsense, 'It was a small water course that hung above the river.' Still, charlatan geriatrics or not, this is a thoroughly pleasing little terrace to enjoy a robust malbec. That is, as long as you sit facing the Cathedral to the north and not the A56 and grubby looking phone box/vagrant urinal to your immediate left. But when there's wine piled floor to ceiling, who really cares.

42 Victoria Street, Manchester, M3 1ST. 0161 832 8222. More here.

Hanging Ditch 

Lucha Libre

Lucha has burst onto the city centre terrace scene with an absolute whopper spilling out onto the plains of Great Northern, by that good-for-nothing Great Northern hollow (would someone fill that in or make it into a playground or observatory or something?). This Mexican food and heavily Mexican themed restaurant and bar have done a great job with their terrace, enclosing the space with foliage, Lucha have squeezed in pillowed, wicker and patio seating for up to 100 bottoms. Happy thirsty bottoms. Lucha is also probably the only place on the list to dish out Sangria, the good stuff. Pair it with a Taco tray and a splash of sunshine and you'll be happier than a Mariachi band in a Doritos advert.

Great Northern Warehouse, 235 Deansgate, M3 4EN. 0161 850 0629. Lucha here.

Lucha Libre, Great Northern

The Mark Addy

When the Mark Addy closed it's doors in January 2014, Confidential let out a big heavy sigh. Ok, the physical upkeep of the site had become a nightmare and the carpets smelt like a trout's pocket, but chef Rob Owen Brown's honest gamey regional cooking was the best in the city. Still even though the food has gone the terrace remains an absolute corker. All brick alcoves, arches and mallards going about their daily business. It's been given a good scrub down during the refurb too. In some ways this was the original city lounging terrace as in the 80s daft council officials would line up and shoot streetside city centre operators who had the temerity to put out tables and chairs.

Mark Addy, Stanley Street, Salford, M3 5EJ. 0161 832 4080. 

Mark Addy 

Mr Thomas’s Chop House

Mr Thomas’s holds such Victorian authenticity you can almost feel Fagin reaching into your pocket. The outdoor terrace with its charming plaid green tablecloths is nestled beneath the elegant looming 300-year-old lady of St Ann’s Church and the slightly newer Gap and Jack Wills stores. This little corner of the square provides a sheltered recess for those shoppers who’ve mustered up a thirst, or had enough. If you’re lucky (or wait an hour) you can hear the toll of the church bells and the croons of a busker as the midday sun begins to creep along the terrace. 

52 Cross Street, Manchester, M2 7AR. 0161 832 2245. @chophouseToms

Mr Thomas's Chop House

The Northern Quarter Bar and Restaurant (TNQ)

The problem with nearly all (actually all) NQ terraces is that, by and large, they’re all by the road. This is the case with TNQ's terrace, however, this terrace has made the cut for two notable features. Firstly, it's a cobbled road, they're passable. Secondly, the terrace sits directly below the magnificent Smithfield Fish Market gates. TNQ has been recommended in the Michelin guide for the past three years now, so not only is it just about the only NQ sun terrace where a car isn't likely to run over your tootsies, but it also has top tucker.

108 High Street, Manchester, M4 1HQ, 0161 832 7115. More here.

TNQ

The Oast House

This is the big'un. King of the city centre drinking terraces. Those that aren't battling out for seating at Dukes 92 in Castlefield can usually be found outside Spinningfield's only pub and faux sixteent-century hop drying house (moved brick by brick from Kent... via Ireland?) in Crown Square, Spinningfields. With a beautifully ample hand-crafted beer Almanac, their now famous 'hanging kebabs' and a number of popular Spinfest music events over the course of the summer, The Oast House is undoubtedly this list's 'People's Choice'.

The Avenue Courtyard, Spinningfields, Crown Square, Manchester, M3 3AY, 0161 829 3830. @TheOastHouseMcr

Oast House

Rain Bar

Paradoxically, Rain bar is a truly fantastic spot in the sun. One of the best looking locations on this list and the only place to provide greenery for your backside. Slightly less hectic than Dukes 92 just up the Rochdale canal, but by no means quiet. This terrace makes the most of its space, boasting a four-tiered, picnic-benched, neatly groomed canalside spot, ideal for dipping toes and kicking Canada Geese up the jacksie. They deserve it.

80 Great Bridgewater Street, Manchester, M1 5JG. 0161 235 6500. Look here.

Rain Bar terrace

Salvi’s Mozzarella Bar

Part deli, part outdoor Italiano piazza café terrace - in fact mostly outdoor terrace as the inside of Salvi’s is tiny. With its columned entrance, floral boxes, bunting and proximity to those stepping stone, water feature, ankle breaker things in Exchange Square, there's a distinct touch of the Mediterranean about Salvi's. This is the editor's favourite small dining/drinking spot in all of the city, which is testament enough - He's gurgitated everywhere, thrice. The best parmigiana and arguably the best coffee in Manchester.

The Triangle, Exchange Square, Unit 22B, Manchester, M4 3TR. 0161 222 8021. More here.

Salvi's

Solita

Solita's sun terrace is perhaps the strangest of the lot. Not the terrace itself, with its decking, chairs and plant boxes the beergarden (or Paulaner Biergarten) is perfectly typical. Solita's point of difference is not only the two great big whopping car park signs thrown into the mix (we suspect the NCP wouldn't shift) that make the terrace look like the world's least car-park-like car park, but mostly because Solita's terrace sits by what I'm convinced is the weirdest street in the city. Red Lion Street opposite the restaurant and by the spanking new terrace carries some of the oddest folk you're ever likely to see in this good city, so for that very reason alone, you need to order a cold one, sit back and drink it in. It also doesn't hurt that notoriously choosy food critic AA Gill named Solita as one of the top three brunch spots in the UK. Full English toad in the hole is a banker.

Solita, 37 Turner Street, Northern Quarter, M4 1DW. @SolitaNQ. 0161 839 2200

Solita's Paulaner Biergarten

Taurus (when it re-opens) and Velvet

If you dare to run this gauntlet, trying your darndest not to get sacrificed and eaten by a hen party from Wigan, then Canal Street is the most vibrant, boisterous and exhausting strip in the city. We wouldn't head there to lose yourself in a book, it'll probably end up in the canal. These two popular straight-friendly bars are grouped because their drinking terraces are practically one and the same. Another canal-side location (funny that), it's worth heading here for a drink just to watch the parade roll on through. Great fun if you're up to it.

Canal Street, Manchester, M1 3HE. @taurusbar and Velvet.

Taurus and Velvet

Velvet Central

Another entry for Velvet. The newest venture from the Canal Street stalwarts adopted the old Beluga joint down near Albert Square, on the corner of Mount Street and Central Street. This was the first move out of the Village for the bar, restaurant and boutique hotelier and they've found themselves a glorious sun-trapper of a spot with an outside terrace wedged tightly between the city's Quaker Friend's Meeting House and the newly opened Central Library. Yes it's by a road, and yes we've discounted other venues for being roadside, but here you get to look at the beautiful library and gargoyles. And it's scorching.

2 Mount St, Manchester, M2 5WQ. 0161 819 1088. Look here.

Velvet Central

The Wharf

This new(ish) three-storey super-pub on the south-westerley-side of the Castlefield basin is the young usurper to Duke 92's dominance. Much like Duke’s, the Wharf boasts fantastic canalaramas, but with the addition of a picture-postcard wooden footbridge, a colourful splashing of mostly well-maintained river barges and a pretty little fountain trickling away in the centre of the terrace. A handy, more genteel and better looking overspill.

6 Slate Wharf, Castlefield, Manchester, M15 4SW. 0161 220 2960. More here.

The Wharf

You can follow David Blake on Twitter @David8Blake.