Come rain or shine, Manchester’s Corn Exchange makes sense as your dining destination

With its architectural grandeur, Manchester’s Corn Exchange is part of the city’s history. The traders who occupy the spot now are a rather more cosmopolitan bunch with restaurants opening out into Exchange Square in a decidedly European manner.

 Paris. Madrid. Manchester.

 It’s not just restaurants that make the Corn Exchange such an important leisure destination. There’s also Escape Hunt – an adrenalin-fuelled brain-twisting experience that you must try if you haven’t yet – and Room^zzz Aparthotel whose accommodation combines the style and elegant proportions you’d expect from such a building.

 The central atrium of the Corn Exchange is light and airy under its domed glass ceiling meaning a meal inside one of its restaurants is only a pane away from being a meal outside – but drier. And when the sun shines, there is nowhere finer to enjoy a cocktail or a meal at one of the many tables in Exchange Square.

 The restaurants offer all the variety you could need with tofu schnitzels and masala scotch eggs, full English breakfasts and Thai curries, all coming together like the happy melting pot that Manchester is today.

Confidential always has a soft spot for independent Italian Salvi’s, with editor-at-large Jonathan Schofield describing it as ‘the best small dining establishment in the city’ whilst Delhi House Café, a Corn Exchange newcomer has just received a very good review from Confidential critic, Kelly Bishop. See here. What this shows is that the restaurants in the Corn Exchange are all about quality, not quick turnovers and pinging microwaves. 

 After all, in such an imposing Grade 11 listed building, anything other than the highest standards would seem an affront.