Home Sweet Home @ Northern Quarter

By James Coldwell

View Larger Map

Opening Times: Monday – Thursday 8-11, (food served until 10pm), Friday & Saturday 9-12 (food served until 11pm), Sunday 9-11 (food served until 11pm)

Visit their website here.

Home Sweet Home offers a lunch like no other. From its quirky homespun décor to its doorstop sandwiches, you are sure to get some nosh with a twist.

Tucked away in the Northern Quarter, this gem of café is the perfect place to take shelter from the Manchester rain. Whether you are after some comfort food for a hangover or an afternoon pick-me-up, this is the ideal spot to eat and chill.

The smell of home cooked food hits us as soon as we enter Home Sweet Home, the sort of aroma that exudes from your grandmother’s kitchen.

The hot-spot opened its doors in May and has since been providing Mancunians with authentic home comforts at all times of the day, whether it is a morning brew or an after work beer.

Boasting a range of sandwiches, salads and cakes, all made with deli fresh ingredients and a love of good simple food and a variety of hot or cold beverages the menu offers something for everyone.

Spoilt for choice and after drooling over the menu for 10 minutes, we are joined by a very helpful Adam, the manager, who gives us a recommendation or two.

After much deliberation we choose to try the Crab & Avocado Club Sandwich, the highly acclaimed Cheeseburger Toastie and the Santa Fe Salad with two mugs of freshly ground coffee from a retro machine to accompany our selections.

Whilst we are debating whether or not our decision to not try the ‘famous’ home-made chilli would be one that would come back to haunt us we are joined by assistant Ben who makes sure that our visit is going well, something that he ensures to all tables in the café.

The food arrives swiftly and, in true Home Sweet Home style, is presented on rustic wooden boards with a couple of wedges of pineapple on the side which proves to be a simple but well thought out pallet cleanser.

The hearty portions will satisfy anyone’s appetite all the while remaining refreshingly simple and clean-cut.

When the Crab & Avocado Club Sandwich arrives we’re initially stumped with how to tackle it, it must be about two inches deep with all that filling. But we attack it with gusto all the same and it’s delicious. The avocado is perfectly soft and compliments the bacon and crab beautifully.

The house speciality, Cheeseburger Toastie, which is made to Home Sweet Home’s secret recipe, does everything it says on the tin and provides a dignified way of eating a notoriously messy cheeseburger. Obviously this is no ordinary cheeseburger, it is however one that fulfils the needs of any burger lover and at the same time tantalises the taste buds in a very different way to a regular one.

The Santa Fe Salad is packed with Cajun chicken, jalapeños and kidney beans, all pulled together by a deliciously creamy picante citrus dressing. This lighter bite provided respite after the stern tests of the Crab & Avocado Club Sandwich and THAT Cheeseburger Toastie.

Once we had gotten through the dishes, our hunger is more than satisfied, or so we think.

However, with eyes bigger than our stomachs, we decide that we cannot leave without sampling their signature home-made chocolate chip cookies that are baked to order directly behind the counter.

The ten minute preparation time that is stated on the menu is well worth the wait when the warm and gooey cookies arrive, accompanied by a glass of milk, a subtle and welcome touch. As you can imagine the milk chocolate oozing treats do not last long.

By this time and with our stomachs lined with mouth-watering food we felt that the wallet was about to take a hit for our over indulgence but our enjoyable experience just got better and better.

Adam, who now feels like a long lost friend in such homely surroundings, presents a bill that must fall foul of the GCSE maths conundrum of the correct use of decimal points but we are assured that this bill is correct.

So, not only do we get to enjoy food and drink of the highest quality but we get to hit the streets of Manchester with enough money to treat ourselves to a spot of retail therapy.

We can assure you of three things when visiting Home Sweet Home; you won’t be disappointed, you will be hard pushed to find a café that comes close to equalling it and you will be itching to return as soon as possible as we did just two days later.

This café is a must visit and worth seeking out. The food is exceptional and Adam and his staff provide you with a warm and friendly welcome whilst treating you as if you are a guest in their very own Home Sweet Home.

What more could you ask for?