The Japanese Anime cafe with real maids hidden inside Afflecks
Inside you'll find rare anime dolls, imported Japanese snacks, milkshakes named after famous characters and stacks of comics which you can read for free
Hidden inside Afflecks is a magical Japanese anime-inspired maid cafe where you can watch films by Studio Ghibli and buy drinks inspired by famous anime characters.
First opened in 2019, the cafe is the only one in the UK of it has kind and has had various different iterations over the years – first starting life off as a shop downstairs before moving onto the second floor.
Based inside its current unit for two years now, in the past few months, its owners have expanded the space to add on a proper Japanese-style sakura cafe behind the shop – complete with upside-down umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and its very own sakura tree.
Neon lights and anime murals cover the walls, there’s a stage covered in plants, ring lights that customers are welcome to use for filming, and, in one corner, a bookshelf filled with anime books that the maids have found in charity shops.
Customers, the maids tell us, are welcome to pick any of these up for a read whilst visiting. The cafe also offers a service to customers to come in and resell their old anime comics to the cafe for a much better price than they might get elsewhere.
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On our visit, we meet two of the cafe’s seven resident maids – Ria and Gia. Both are dressed in cosplay Japanese maid outfits, Maid Gia also has furry black and brown cat ears on her head, whilst Maid Ria is sporting black and red dragon wings.
They are keen to stress that, whilst the cafe does draw its inspiration from Japan’s maid cafe culture, unlike in Japan in no way are they wanting to be fetishised.
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Over there, customers commonly call the maid’s “Princess” and vice versa are called “master”. Here at Affleck’s, the focus is more on having fun – not on sexualising the intimacy between customer and maid.
“In their cafes, […] master and princess is like kind of like fetishist names […] we don’t want any aspect of fetishising anything, we don’t want any Asian fishing or anything like that because it’s just disgusting.”
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“We just want to have fun and dress like maids and sell Japanese merch without hurting anyone,” adds Gia sweetly.
Both maids’ enthusiasm for Japanese anime and manga culture is infectious – and as they start to explain more about the fantastical worlds that are created within it, where people are born with pink hair and devil horns, where someone might be half-cat, or have superpowers that see them shoot stars out of their hands – it’s easy to see how you could become immersed.
It’s pure fantasy at its very best. They tell us about Death Note, where you write someone’s name in a magical notebook and it kills them, and about another character who has the power of being trans – where they can inject themselves and change gender.
It’s all brilliantly weird, “the weirdest stuff you can think of” says Gia.
As well as selling food and drink inspired by their favourite anime characters, which includes a list of milkshake specials loaded with the likes of chocolate, raspberry, fruit pearls, tapioca and cream, the cafe also sells authentic figures that are collector’s items in their own right.
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“All of our stuff is straight from Japan which we feel like gives more of an immersive experience, so if you could never travel to Japan you’ve literally got it right here,” says maid Ria.
The shelves are packed with boxes of different figures from the comic worlds, as well as Japanese snacks from the likes of Hello Panda. There’s also a fridge filled with different flavoured drinks that pay tribute to some iconic characters, including a blue-haired Sonic.
For now, the food offering is limited to snacks that you can buy to eat in the neighbouring cafe – but the maids tell us they’ve got plans to introduce hot food as soon as possible and hope to start selling bowls of ramen and cookie dough, adding an immersive element into the service.
Ria tells us, “In Japan, they serve little omelettes and then the maids come over and like draw in your omelettes like smiley faces, that’s the kind of stuff we really want to do in the future.”
“We’re getting this kitted out as a proper kitchen, we’re going to do cookie dough as well yes omg we have a red velvet flavour, a death by chocolate flavour, birthday cake flavour – I’m really excited for that – bubblegum. It’s like a cookie dough ice cream and that will be the first kind of food that we serve instead of just like a snack you buy off the shelf.
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“We’re just looking to put it somewhere.”
“In this cafe it’s just always like gradually growing. A lot of places open and it’s like BAM! But yeah we’re always growing and that’s what’s nice, taking new ideas and that’s what’s fun about it,” adds Gia.
The maids also tell us about their plans to have a proper maid cafe in the future out on the street, where they can stand outside and welcome customers in “with like the windows all pink and frilly, like a little castle.”
Designed for like-minded people with a shared interest in anime, the cafe has been set up to be suitable for all ages where fans can socialise and initiate new friendships,
All of its maids are anime fanatics and experts too, and with their help owner Rio has created a safe space for anime fans where guests can watch anime, play video games, and transport themselves to cosplaying heaven.
Over the Halloween weekend, the cafe will be hosting a special event to tie in with the annual Manchester Anime and Gaming Con.
Feature
In celebration of Momo Shop: a Chorlton favourite that has flourished since its rebrand
Danny Jones
It’s not often we go out of our way to hammer home just how staggering we found a restaurant, but after now losing track of the number of times that a member of our team has eaten at Momo Shop in Chorlton and come back near speechless, it deserves more than a review.
We regularly hold ourselves back and resist the urge to talk in superlatives wherever possible, especially because we worry we might be falling into the recency bias trap, but in this instance, we’re going to go out on a limb and fall on our hospitality sword. Well, this particular writer is…
It’s official: Momo Shop Nepali Street Food – for our money, anyway – is up there with one of THE best restaurants in Manchester right now.
And there are plenty of reasons why, not least of all because of the years of practice they have feeding increasingly discerning Manc diners under a different moniker.
Simple but charming – all the focus is on the foodAnd the food speaks for itselfSome of the most flavourful fillings you’ll find in ManchesterBusy any given night of the weekNo review (Credit: The Manc Eats/Momo Shop via Instagram)
If you don’t live in/frequent Chorlton, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this gaff was a somewhat new addition to Chorlton, but in actual fact it’s been gradually growing a loyal and passionate following for more than seven years.
This is because before the miniamlist rebrand that saw the walls stripped back, the exterior painted blue and cutesy little bits of artwork hung amidst that familiar and atmospheric festoon lighting, Momo Shop was once The Little Yeti.
Its former iteration boasted hundreds of glowing reviews in its own right, which already plated up plenty of stunning Nepalese food, but since switching primarily towards serving a menu primarily made up of momos (Tibetan-style fried dumplings hand-folded into various shapes) they’ve well and truly shone.
Now approaching a full 12 months under the new name, the Nepali street food spot isn’t just one of a relatviely small handful considering how much great South Asian food there is across Greater Manchester, we’d wager it could be the very best representing that Alpine-Himalayan belt in our region.
Our latest visit was genuinely just as good as our first, second, third and so on – take your pick.
From the simply incredible deep fried pork dumplings and the deeply moorish butter sauce that goes with literally any momo filling, to the super traditional buffalo ones that are not only authentic but, come on, where else can you find such a unique meat in these parts? It’s some of the best food we’ve eaten.
And we don’t just mean of late; Momo Shop might genuinely among of the nicest scran we’ve had in ages and it’s no exagerration to say that the first taste we enjoyed from many of these flavours have formed some of the strongest culinary memories we’ve created in quite a while.
It’s also worth nothing that it isn’t just one main snack-sized dish. The chow mein, keema noodles and cheesy chops are showstoppers themselves, and we’ve already booked in again for a 30th birthday celebration purely so we can try those lambs ribs and their take on a shashlick.
Nevertheless, we love the idea of the numerous configurations and concotions by pairing different dumplings and owner Niti Karki gave us some pro-tips of the best duos and even let us in on the trade secret of her go-to combo when she’s hungover. Legend.
Once again, at the risk of sounding too hyperbolic, odd moments have felt like core foodie memories on a par with our favourite all-time meals.
Personally, I’m glad to report that this isn’t just a review: consider this a declaration that Momo Shop has quickly become my favourite restaurant not just in Chorlton but in all of central Manchester, something I haven’t had since the heartbreaking closure of Cocktail Beer Ramen + Bun in 2023.
Plenty of varietyDamn straightNiti = absolute iconWe’ll keep your condiment secret forever, Niti…
There might be an element of the almost HakkaPo-esque style drawings, the colour palette and the carefully curated pop-punk, old school emo and post-hardcore playlist that’s over half a decade in the making that makes particualrly partial to this place
But before we wrap up this glorified love letter parading as a ‘review’, we also want to give a special nod to the charming staff and Niti’s mum, specficially, who was too modest to even let us share her picture, but whose wealth of wisdom, influence and experience has clearly inspired Momo Shop’s success.
Don’t be shy, Sue – the only thing more stylish than the food was you, girl. Pop off.
Put simply, we’ll be going back here as regularly as possible until we try every different momo + sauce variation there is, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.
If you are in the mood for more dumpling excellence, by the way, you might want to check out the unassuming Northern Quarter gem that is Chef Diao.
Lady Gaga is a tour-de-force of talent at the Co-op Live Manchester
Clementine Hall
Lady Gaga proves she’s a truly world-class act after two sold-out nights at the Co-op Live Manchester, as if we needed any reminding.
The city of Manchester has been flooded with harness-wearing, mesh-sporting little monsters over the past two days.
And that’s because the absolute icon that is Lady Gaga brought her ‘Mayhem Ball’ to the Co-op Live for two nights.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who doesn’t know who this fabulous woman is. Over the past decade, she’s won an Oscar, headlined the Super Bowl, performed in blockbusters alongside Al Pacino, no less, and her songs are literally ingrained into our minds.
It’s been a whole 11 years (yes, really) since she performed in Manchester, and it’s safe to say she was back with a bang.
The performance was split up into five distinct acts, and each one was as exhausting and exhilarating as the next.
She begins the show by bopping out of a comically huge red dress, but this staging was only the start of what madness was about to ensue.
Luckily, we’d been prepared by the other half of the Audio North team, who had the equal privilege of seeing her on night one and were left similarly speechless.
Throughout the 30-song epic, we had crutches, sand pits, cages, skeletons, enough wigs to produce an amateur production of Annie, and we didn’t question any of it. Why would we? It’s Lady Gaga.
Kicking things off with ‘Bloody Mary’, the two and a half hour marathon didn’t leave any stones unturned.
We had all the bangers, from ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Paparazzi’ to ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Applause’, it had us wondering why any other superstar even bothers putting a song out these days.
Pop is in a good place at the moment with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and so on, but you can make a strong case for Gaga having helped pave the way for every lady in the business ever since.
Gaga truly had us in the palm of her hands (or claws at one point), even more so when she left the stage to de-robe and show her more vulnerable side for the last two songs – beanie firmly on.
It wasn’t just a concert: this was a fully-fledged tour de force of talent that Manchester won’t forget any time soon.
Sometimes there’s no point in intellectualising why someone has that ‘X-factor’; sometimes you just have to take a step back and say WOW.