MAYA, a restaurant that was delivering refined dining in the Gay Village in Manchester, has announced its closure after just two years in the city.
The luxury three-storey restaurant opened in 2024, transforming a former warehouse building on the corner of Chorlton Street and Canal Street.
MAYA made its way into the Michelin Guide just two weeks after opening – though subsequently dropped off the prestigious list.
But now it’s the end of the road for this ‘bold and ambitious project’, with owners confirming today that its final service will be this weekend.
They wrote that ‘this has not been an easy decision’ but the restaurant is faced with an ‘increasingly challenging backdrop’ that is making the outlook for an independent businesses like MAYA ‘increasingly difficult’.
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Inside the ground-floor brasserie, diners had beautiful views down the iconic cobbled canalside street.
Then downstairs below ground level lay the main dining room, filled with luxury touches like blue velvet and brass, plus a huge central marble-topped bar.
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There was even a ‘secret’ hidden lounge bar below the main dining room too, with a strict no-photos policy.
MAYA Manchester has announced it closureThe Canal Street restaurant opened in 2024
MAYA’s full statement reads: “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close MAYA Manchester, with our final service taking place this weekend.
“This has not been an easy decision. Over the past year, and especially in recent months, we have made strong and encouraging progress, but against an increasingly challenging backdrop for hospitality and small, independent brands.
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“It has become clear that, looking ahead, the outlook for businesses like ours is increasingly difficult and not sustainable in its current form.
“Our immediate focus is on our team, and they have been kept updated throughout this process so they can consider their options and make necessary plans. Our focus now is on supporting the team through the coming days and ensuring everyone is paid properly. We want to thank every member of our team, past and present, who helped shape MAYA and contributed to its story.
“We would also like to thank our guests, collaborators, performers, DJs, suppliers and wider Manchester community who supported MAYA over the last two years. Whether you joined us for coffee, cocktails, celebrations, late nights or something in between, thank you for being part of it.
“MAYA has always been a bold and ambitious project. We have been proud to see it evolve, particularly in recent months, and we are proud of the moments, friendships and memories created within our walls.
“As we approach our final few days, we remain focused on giving our guests and community the experience they know us for. We hope many of you will join us before our final service, as we celebrate this chapter together.”
Legendary city centre boozer named one of the best beer gardens in the UK
Daisy Jackson
No phones, cheap pints, and bags of sunshine – that’s the USP of Sinclair’s Oyster Bar, and now it’s earned itself the title of being one of the UK’s best beer gardens.
This legendary local pub has placed in an impressive eighth place on a new list of the nation’s top outdoor watering holes, beating beachside boozers and countryside pubs.
Sinclair’s Oyster Bar is the only Greater Manchester pub to make the new list published by Big 7 Travel.
They celebrated it for its ‘old-school pub characteristics’, which is a pretty fair summary of this local legend.
As well as a strict no-phones policy, encouraging its inhabitants to keep devices in their pockets and have a chin wag over a Taddy Lager instead, the pub is also serving pints at some of town’s most old-school prices.
This is one of the few places in town where you can still get a pint for less than a fiver, with its humble selection of beers and stouts priced from £3.50.
It’s also cash-only, and housed in a fascinating building that dates back to the 18th century – though it didn’t always stand in its current location on Exchange Square.
The pub has actually been rebuilt twice – once in the 1970s, being raised up by five feet to match new street levels during the construction of the Arndale Centre; then again in 1996 after the IRA bomb.
The 3000-pound bomb that changed the face of Manchester left the little pub with only minimal damage, but left it (and its neighbour, the Old Wellington) in need of a new home.
Sinclair’s in Manchester has been named as having one of the best beer gardens in the UK
So these centuries-old buildings were popped up on stilts and moved 300m down the road, meticulously reassembled over 11 months like a giant LEGO set to form the new square beside Manchester Cathedral.
You can read more about Sinclair’s Oyster Bar’s fascinating history HERE.
As for the present day, the pub’s suntrap outside terrace is forever heaving on match days, when football fans from across the globe pack around its picnic tables.
Big 7 Travel wrote: “Known for its old-school pub characteristics, including being cash-only and a no-phones policy, this historic pub – whose origins date back to the early 18th-century – is well known for serving cheap and easy-drinking Sam Smith’s beer, making it the perfect spot to socialise with friends in the city.
“The beer garden is also a complete suntrap, so when the sun’s shining in Manchester, there are few better places to spend an afternoon than Sinclair’s.”
It has placed in the top 10 of the guide’s list of 30 beer gardens in the UK, which has also named a couple of spots in the Lake District and Peak District.
The very best Chinatown restaurants in Manchester
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester as a whole is lucky enough to be spoiled by umpteenth excellent Chinese restaurants, let alone the best of the best in Chinatown.
We also have it on good authority that the North of England has some of the best Pan-Asian restaurants in all of the UK, and if that is the case, then we’ll absolutely lay claim to Manchester being the frontrunner of the lot.
That being said, there’s such sheer variety when it comes to the hospitality heritage that comes out of China and the surrounding territories alone, and we’ve got one condensed melting pot celebrating it all and much more right here in the city centre.
Without further ado, in our opinion, here is some of the very best food you’ll find in Chinatown…
11 top of the best places to eat in Manchester’s Chinatown
1. Dragon Oriental – Hong Kong
First up, we’re winging our way to Dragon Oriental, which does some of the best Hong Kong-style scran in town. The baked Portuguese rice (a HK classic) is one of the best recipes we’ve found, their shared starter platters are perfect for lunch, and soups for £6.50 is one of the best offers around.
This was the first place we ever tried proper eel and traditionally prepared jellyfish; they also happen to find themselves on our best breakfasts in Manchester listicle, so if you’ve never done brunch the Hong Kong way, then we urge you to give it a try, even if only for that fantastic twist on French roast alone.
Just across the road in Chinatown, Kung Fu Noodle is still a relatively recent addition to the area, but it didn’t take long for it to leave an impression and generate queues lining up around the block – and let us tell you, it’s always well worth the wait.
Believe it or not, this place shines for exactly the thing you think it does: the noodles. Be it their signature hand-pulled type with that lovely thick and chewy texture, Shanxi knife-cut noodle soups, or the hot oil-splashed Biang Biang ones, you won’t find many better places mastering this kind of carb.
Let’s start pulling in some Pan-Asia, shall we? You simply cannot write about the best places in Chinatown without hailing one of the GOATs: Pho Cue. Amusingly monikered and impressively authentic, this subterranean Viet cafe is packed every dinner hour and very much lives up to the hype.
Be it their famous bahn mi lineup, come midday, their summer rolls, anything salt and pepper, or the bowls of broth themselves, you really can’t go wrong here. They often add new things to the menu, like iced coffees and their ever-rotating Sunday specials (which always sell out) – you just HAVE to visit here.
In at number four, we couldn’t go any longer before shouting out the legendary Happy Seasons, which is essentially a Manchester institution at this point, loved by ex-pats, Mancs, tourists and beyond. Beloved for banqueting and its stellar set menus, there is SO much variety here.
We’d be hard-pressed to pick a favourite from the hundreds of options available, but if we were pushed, we recommend any of their roast meat selections – just get the full trio and thank us later – and the beef ho/chow fun is always a popular choice. To be honest, we’d eat pretty anything at this place.
5. Try Thai – Thai
Turning to Thailand now, this could be a whole round-up in itself, but we will confidently state that the best Thai restaurant in Manchester city centre’s Chinatown, for our money, is the wonderful Try Thai.
A ‘BYOB’ gaff that keeps its prices affordable and portion sizes plentiful to boot, we had a period of life where we went here every single matchday for about three months at one point. Our go-to order? Pineapple fried rice, the jungle curry if we were ever feeling brave, and trademark mango crispy seabass.
Crossing the halfway mark, we’re shifting our focus to Szechuan scran, specifically, and the superb Noodle Alley that has carved out an impressive reputation within the highly saturated foodie strip that has Faulkner Street.
Much like the aforementioned Kung Fu’s maiden Manc venue, this fellow basement blends the Sichuan cuisine with that hailing from Guangzhou/’Canton’ and the wider Guangdong province. This husband and wife couple behind this venue deserve heaps of praise all of their own right, so we happily obliged.
Swapping mainland China for Japanese food, Wazuzhi – formerly known as Wasabi – is another firm fave among locals and day-trippers alike.
Known not just for great sushi and lunchtime deals, some very solid ramen, and arguably some of the best ice cream in Manchester (shaved ice, technically, but still). It also happens to be ‘r Kris’ happy place during most work breaks, so it has to be on this list.
Once again, part of the beauty behind the best Chinese cooking is how many different regional variations there are as you move up and down the vast and equally gastro-obsessed nation, two key ones being the familiar Cantonese fare and the somewhat lesser-celebrated food from Hunan.
Also referred to as Xiang cuisine, these dishes ramp up the amount of chilli, garlic and shallots as opposed to, say, the famous numbing spice qualities of Szechuan peppercorns. Flying the flag for the province here in Manchester, they served everyone from generations of migrants to Oasis and more.
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9. Kaya – Malaysian
Moving over to Malaysia now, we’re fortunate enough to have eaten at Kaya multiple times over recent years and every time we think of this country, we first think of its food, and then we think of Kaya.
There may be some places serving classic Malay dishes in and around central Manchester, but we don’t know any that celebrate this particular culinary corner of the world as well as this lot. The nasi lemak and beef rendang are incredible, as is their version of butter chicken. So unbelievably underrated.
Sometimes we crave nothing but the roti section with all that dhal and dip. (Credit: The Manc)
10. Mei Dim – Dim sum
Penultimately, we’re taking you to Mei Dim for some top-notch dim sum and then some, because you’ll struggle to find many places in Greater Manchester that do a dumpling feast quite like you’ll find at this second-to-last spot.
Our advice is to come with an empty belly, because you always end up eating more pieces than you intend to, and obviously, you want room for all the other stuff besides just the little doughy delights and buns – the sweet ones aren’t bad, either.
Jumping over to Japan for one last Chinatown visit, Yuzu stand outs as one of the most unique and refined spots in the entire neighbourhood, not only setting itself apart from the wealth of Chinese food but bringing a little taste of Japanese fine dining to the delicious half a square mile.
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Named after the supreme overload of all citrus, it’s rather fitting that it celebrates the strongest fruit of the bunch, because all they thrive when it comes to small plates, the flavours here are as BIG as they get.
@the.manc If you love Japanese small plates just as much as we do, then you absolutely need to get yourselves down to @Yuzu Manchester ♬ I got to summer – noxz
And that should just about do it for our round-up of the best restaurants in Chinatown, be that Manchester staples or the newer names pushing its food, drink and dining scene in new directions.
It’s also worth noting that Chinatown MCR isn’t just our dedicated cultural district; it’s the second biggest after London here in the UK and the third-largest in all of Europe, in fact.
That being said, there’s lots to get to grips with besides just the eats, so you’ll be glad to know we’ve put together a helpful overview for you, too.
Find out what else there is to be enjoyed down below.
Daisy Jackson -
28th May 2026 
