Mayhap Coffee in Wigan is clearly doing something right – walk past on any given weekend and you’re likely to see a polite line up people waiting outside its doors.
They’re queueing up for what’s become one of Greater Manchester’s very best brunches and coffee spots.
Tucked down a quiet street in Tyldesley, Mayhap Coffee is a proper indie that’s become a firm favourite with the local community since opening two years ago.
Rain or shine (and it’s usually rain in Wigan), locals make the pilgrimage to Chapel Street for their fix of pancakes, coffees and brunch dishes.
As it’s walk-in only, you’ve got to really commit to get a seat in this cosy spot – but it is always, always worth the effort.
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Hero dishes here include their huge pancake stacks, which are always lauded as some of the best in Greater Manchester, and their tower French toasts, including the monthly specials.
As time’s gone on, the Mayhap Coffee French toast has taken the shape of tiramisu, apple pie, and even Easter egg.
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Mayhap Coffee in Wigan. Credit: The Manc GroupEpic cheesy beans on toast. Credit: The Manc GroupInside Mayhap Coffee. Credit: the Manc Group
But you know what never goes out of style? Banoffee fudge French toast, that’s what. This is a literal cube of delicious brioche wearing a wizard’s hat of mascarpone on top.
Another star of the show is the humble beans on toast, elevated here with their own baked beans recipe, lashings of two different cheeses, and a fried egg on top if that’s what you fancy.
There’s also an nduja scramble, where this spicy, melty sausage is cooked in with fluffy eggs before being loaded onto toasted farmhouse bread and topped with feta and spring onion.
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Queues at Mayhap. Credit: Instagram, @mayhapcoffeeBrunch dishes at Mayhap Coffee. Credit: The Manc Group
Mayhap takes its coffee seriously and really knows its stuff, with a team who are more than happy to explain exactly what and why is going into your morning brew.
Its charming exterior is all thanks to a designated High Street Heritage Action Zone, which has seen several shop fronts in the area brought back to their glory days.
The sash windows at Mayhap Coffee now look almost exactly as they would have in 1895.
Shame those Victorians never got to experience the delights of a Mini Egg pancake stack, though…
One of Manchester’s grandest restaurants has finally reopened TWO YEARS after fire
Daisy Jackson
One of the most historic restaurants in Manchester has reopened at last, two years after a fire forced its closure.
Mount Street Dining Room & Bar – which many of us may remember as Mr Cooper’s – stands within the Grade II-listed Midland Hotel.
The grand dining room dates all the way back to 1903, when it opened with the hotel as the Grill Room.
The restaurant was at the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution and was frequented by railway travellers, perhaps best-known for hosting a lunch between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce in 1904, who went on to form the world-famous Rolls-Royce brand.
The Midland’s restaurants has gone through several changes in the decades since, undergoing a major £14 million refurb in 2020 to relaunch as Mount Street Dining Room & Bar.
Its interiors are inspired by the hotel’s early 1900s art deco and railway heritage, with a menu that focuses on locally-sourced British produce.
But the restaurant has been shut since early 2024, when a fire damaged the entrance and trellising around its main entrance on Mount Street.
The beautiful bar areaA glimpse of the menu at Mount StreetCocktails and British food
The Midland has finally managed to get the restaurant back open again this month, with a new food and cocktail menus, which aims to offer refined but simple British dining.
Expect dishes like pork and black pudding bonbons, white onion soup with crispy potatoes, smoked British salmon with lemon gel and dill mascarpone, and slow cooked beef daube with confit garlic mash.
Plus desserts such as rice pudding with Anise glazed pearsand Bakewell pudding with cherry syrup.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen inside this beautiful, storied dining room – and it looks just as beautiful as we remember.
Daisy Jackson -
20th September 2024 
