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Didsbury does money very, very well, with plenty of high-end high street chains nestling up to each other along the high street. Café Rouge, Slug and Lettuce and M&S Food all do a roaring trade with the swish young professionals. But if you’re looking for something with a touch more soul, step off Wilmslow Road and onto Barlow Moor Road instead. Barely ten paces from the chain-driven centre is, quite simply, the best tea shop in South Manchester.
The Art Of Tea rescues a little old English tearoom from the recycling, gives it a walloping great dose of San Francisco boho vibes, decorates it with dark green walls, art posters and local artists’ daubings, sticks tables out the front and a record shop-cum-bookshop out the back and then sits down with a huge chunk of homemade cake.
They don’t do evening meals, closing up at 6 throughout the week (and nipping off an hour earlier on Sundays) but during the day the food is fairy priced, decently sized and very tasty. There is a good range of sandwiches – our favourite being the Lancashire cheese, caramelised carrot and baby spinach on rye for £3.50 – as well as salads, dips, smoothies and soup. The cakes are wonky and definitely homemade, but also very moist and moreish. Try the carrot cake at £1.80 and you’ll see what we mean.
The bookshop in the back room is also very much worth a try. You’re likely to find travel guides nestled up against Proust, towering piles of books on every surface and a charmingly eccentric man with twinkly eyes and a grey beard sat in the middle of it all.
All in all, this is probably our favourite café in Manchester, and definitely in South Manchester. Next time you’re in Didsbury and feeling peckish, give it a try – you will be glad you did. Find The Art Of Tea on map |
