Pistachio is having a bit of a *moment* right now – if it’s not green and nutty, Manchester doesn’t want to know.
This delicious ingredient, commonplace in Italian and Middle Eastern desserts for generations, has become the dessert It Girl of the 2020s.
Moving on from baklavas and gelatos, you’ll now find pistachio infiltrating lattes, cookies, cheesecakes, chocolate bars, pancake stacks and loads more.
Whether you like yours to still come in the shape of a nut, or are happy for it to be whizzed up into that ubiquitous pistachio creme, we’ve found 10 of the best places to get your pistachio fix in Manchester.
Half Dozen Other, Oxford Road and Red Bank
Pistachio cookie at Half Dozen Other, Manchester. Credit: The Manc Group
Half Dozen Other comes from the team behind Pot Kettle Black, with a huge bakery site over in the Green Quarter and now a cafe on Oxford Road too.
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It’s at that latter site where you’ll get one of the best pistachio desserts in Manchester – a luminous green cookie, stuffed to bursting with dark and white chocolate chips and pistachios too.
It’s proven so popular, and so delicious, it’s now part of their core bakes range.
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The Half Dozen Other team dream up brand-new bakes every single week to go alongside their staple croissants, and they’re all amazing.
Black Milk, Oldham Road
The full pistachio range at Black Milk ManchesterA pistachio milkshake with pistachio cake on top at Black Milk
Oh hi there, is that you, looking for the best desserts in Manchester? You’ve come to the right place.
These guys are the OG (and best) creators of pistachio creme, sold in jars online, in store, in Co-op and in Selfridges (ooh fancy). They also make their own granola, including a pistachio and white chocolate flavour.
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Black Milk has been a firm Manc favourite for years now, thanks to its outrageous cereal bowls (the bowl is chocolate), milkshakes topped with a slice of cake, cheesecakes constructed in a chocolate bowl, and giant pancake stacks.
You can get all of those with lashings of that iconic pistachio creme too – it’s a must-visit.
Sipp, Great Ancoats Street and Deansgate Square
Sipp has teamed up with Black Milk for pistachio matchas. Credit: The Manc Group
Matcha girlies, assemble! Sipp is a coffee shop that’s doing some of the best iced drinks in town.
Based in the General Stores in Ancoats and Deansgate Square – and with their own coffee shop soon to open in Chorlton – these guys don’t mess around when it comes to delicious flavoured matchas.
They’ve got one on the menu that’s made with Black Milk’s pistachio creme – a green dream – or you can order their best-seller, a refreshing coconut and raspberry concoction.
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Cocoa Cabana, Cutting Room Square
Cocoa Cabana in Manchester sells the viral Dubai pistachio chocolate. Credit: The Manc Group
If you haven’t yet come across the Dubai pistachio chocolate bars, you simply aren’t spending enough time online.
These enormous bars are stuffed with pistachio sauce and knafeh, a crunchy, traditional Arabic pastry that is sort of reminiscent of when you use to make Easter nests with a Shredded Wheat in primary school.
Cocoa Cabana finishes theirs in a shimmering coat of edible gold (because why not).
This brilliant chocolate cafe also has smores platters, fondue, afternoon teas and loads more – see more about Cocoa Cabana here.
Alex’s Bakery, Deansgate
You can get pistachio tres leche cake at Alex’s BakeryPistachio French toast at Alex’s Bakery
Tucked in amongst all the brilliant local names lining the side of Deansgate and Great Northern is Alex’s Bakery, which shot to fame for its cupcakes and brownies but actually nails every dessert you can think of.
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Come for the cakes but stay for the brunches, which include pancake stacks and huge wedges of French toast generously drizzled in pistachio creme and white chocolate.
Oh god and PLEASE don’t skip out on their tres leches cakes – soft sponge cakes beloved in South America, which come in loads of flavours here. The tiramisu and pistachio ones top our list.
If you can’t make it into town, Alex’s Bakery also has a big online shop you can order from.
The Flat Baker, Ancoats
Pistachio soft serve in a croissant from Flat BakerFlat Baker is the home of the pistachio croissant
It would be remiss of me to not include the Flat Baker in any round-up of pistachio flavoured things.
This Ancoats bakery goes viral all the time for its pistachio-stuffed croissants, with steady queues at their little hatch on Radium Street and queues at the Christmas Markets that were so long they actually left the markets altogether.
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Known for blending traditional baking with Brazilian influences, here you’ll find crispy pastries baked fresh daily – and it’s the home of the pistachio croissant.
In summer, they even serve pistachio soft serve in a croissant cone.
DGHNT, Mackie Mayor
DGHNT’s pistachio tiramisu doughnut in Mackie Mayor, Manchester
The biggest and best doughnuts in town are being served in Mackie Mayor, by the legendary DGHNT.
These artisan brioche delights are baked fresh daily, with a constantly evolving cabinet full of specials.
One of the best – and thankfully most frequently-returning – is the pistachio tiramisu, where that pillowy brioche dough is stuffed with tiramisu filling before being coated in a pistachio cream glaze and candied pistachios. Yum.
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Nur Cafe, Deansgate
There’s an Arabian cafe on Deansgate that’s a nur brainer (sorry) for authentic Middle Eastern pastries and sweet treats – and yes, that means pistachio aplenty.
It can’t stop going viral online for its sweet treats, from tres leches cakes to pistachio lattes.
There’s also really, really good baklava on offer here, plus full Turkish breakfasts, French pastries, spiced Saudi coffees, and shakshuka.
Ornella’s Kitchen, Denton
The pistachio carbonara from Ornella’s Kitchen. Credit: The Manc GroupPistachio gelato in a Sicilian brioche bun. Credit: The Manc Group
Italian restaurants don’t get much more authentic (or popular) than Ornella’s Kitchen in Denton.
This tiny little restaurant and deli has you’ll find proper Italian pistachio gelato, served in a soft Sicilian brioche bun.
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And it makes its way onto the savoury menu too, in the form of a pistachio carbonara with crispy guanciale pieces that burst in little salty mouthfuls against the rich and creamy pasta sauce.
This place will have been all over your FYP page if you’ve ever expressed any interest in food.
Chai Cabin in Bolton is serving up the creamiest cheesecakes we’ve ever had (we know, bold statement), plus the viral sensation; Dubai pistachio chocolate-covered strawberry pots, with that delicious crunch from the knafeh pastry.
They also do milkshakes, waffles, tiramisu, doughnuts and more. Honestly, this is a dessert-lovers heaven.
I went on a walking wine tour around Manchester and it might be the perfect afternoon out
Daisy Jackson
If you love wine, and you love Manchester, and you’d quite like to do something with your afternoon that celebrates both of those things, can I put you onto the Manchester Wine Tours?
This genius little event sees small groups of people heading across the city on, essentially, an organised and very sophisticated bar crawl.
Imagine Carnage, but instead of drawing on a t-shirt and slamming neon green alcopops, you’re dressed up nicely and visiting some of Manchester’s top food and drink businesses.
Manchester Wine Tours is owned and operated by Kel Bishop, a local food and drink writer and wine teacher.
Each tour is different, taking in different bars, different wines, and different people.
But as a general rule of thumb you can expect to meet up with Kel somewhere centrally, and follow her to around four different bars, sampling one or two wines in each.
You end up drinking roughly two-thirds of a bottle of wine, unless you get lucky with a small group like ours, where we definitely got a little more than that.
And each tour factors in a few points of interest, in classic walking tour style and for even more of a Manchester flavour.
On the Manchester Wine Tour I joined, our route included a few of the city centre’s newest wine hotspots, starting at Kallos, the fantastic greek restaurant in Salford that’s striving to have the largest collection of greek wines in the UK.
Here we tucked into their divine, puffed-up flatbreads and dips, as well as tinned octopus, all paired with a crisp sparkling Domaine Karanika Brut Cuvee Speciale.
Stop one on our Manchester Wine Tours – Kallos
Then it was on with the big coats for a walk back into the city centre to Sterling.
On a personal note, I’ve been working as a food and drink journalist in Manchester for a decade. I did not expect to have any surprises along the way.
But then Kel led us into the wine room at Sterling – not usually open to the public – and proved me wrong.
Tucked away from the main bar, surrounded by wooden shelves glinting with different wines, we sampled a dry Chenin a New Zealand Lethbridge Chardonnay, and all realised we had been judging Chardonnay far too harshly.
Inside Sterling
It’s at this stop that Kel really breaks down the art of wine tasting, and how to build your understanding of a wine from sight to smell to sip.
Suitably warmed up, it was time for a dash across to Winsome, the new British restaurant that’s already been added to the Michelin guide, where we crammed around a centrepiece of wine bottle candles dripping in wax to discover the delights of the Greek Alkemi Xenomavro rose – my favourite wine from the night that I bought an extra bottle of to take home.
Each stop of the wine tour offers snacks as well as the wines, and for Winsome it was a delicate squash dish picked by the chef to compliment our drinks.
Manchester Wine Tours in Winsome
We also sampled a lethally good Terre de Zeus Xinomavro here – it was a good day for Greek wine.
By this point of the tour we’re like a slightly wobbly gaggle of baby birds, scurrying after Kel towards our final spot for the night – Beeswing.
The Kampus bar provided an Austrian Funkstille Zweigelt (ordered an extra glass of this, it was so good) and a The Good Luck Club Cabernet Sauvignon from the Barossa Valley, plus boards of charcuterie and cheese.
My brain is like a sieve for wine facts (I’ve written up most of this by looking at the labels), but I guess that just means the Manchester Wine Tour will have a repeat customer.
Kel is an expert at reading the room and deftly tailors her tastings to suit each person’s wine experience. For some it’s just the pleasure of drinking a nice wine (here, have a top-up), for others it’s digging into the history and politics of the drink. Some just wanted to uncover a new bar or restaurant, playing tourist in their own city.
It felt as though all seven of us on our tour took something different away from the exact same experience – and is that not the beauty of good hospitality?
It’s all completely accessible, approachable and very, very fun.
‘Exclusive’ Manchester nightclub shares customer’s eye-watering £88k bill
Daisy Jackson
A nightclub in Manchester has shared a picture of a recent customer’s bill – and to call them a big spender would be underselling it.
The luxury nightclub posted a photo of a bill that racked up to an eye-watering £88k.
Or, to be very specific, £88,589.60.
The flash customer was at The Continental Club, otherwise known as The Conti, an ‘exclusive’ bar and club on South King Street.
The bar is a drastic departure from the former nightlife spot which stood in its place – the building was previously home to South, a legendary underground club famed for its alternative soundtrack.
Now it’s got a new life as a nightlife haunt where, apparently, it’s not uncommon to spend the equivalent of a small terrace house on drinks.
The bar shared the picture of the receipt yesterday, describing it as a ‘record-breaker’.
The Continental Club has claimed that it’s not only the biggest spend in its own walls, but the most expensive bill to have ever taken place in any club in Manchester.
‘Exclusive’ Manchester nightclub shares customer’s eye-watering £88k bill
Curious to see how exactly a person could spend £88k on drinks? Let’s break down some of the more expensive items.
Let’s kick things off with three bottles of Clase Azul Ultra Extra Anejo, a tequila which retails for around £2.5k but set this customer back £9,500 a pop…
Then there’s a couple of magnums of Dom Perignon rose champagne (£2,000 each), a few bottles of Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades Champagne (£1,500 each), and a few £950 bottles of Chivas Regal 25 whiskey.
It makes the £850 Grey Goose at the bottom seem like child’s play.
They also slammed at least 48 Red Bulls, according to the bill.
Then on top of that you’ve got a staggering £8k worth of service charge – some very happy staff went home that night, I’d imagine.
The Continental Club wrote: “Some come to sip…others come to set records. The biggest table spend to EVER take place in a club in Manchester.”
Daisy Jackson -
26th February 2025 
