Top end
The Modern
Search out the upmarket restaurants in the city's top hotels The Lowry Hotel, The Midland, SAS Radisson, and the Hilton, Deansgate to name just four. Less grand, but very popular, is the restaurant in The Malmaison hotel, by Piccadilly station. The restaurant at the top of the Urbis building,The Modern , reopened at the end of 2007 to much acclaim. It also has a great bar which shares the good view of the city's skyline. The Market Restaurant, in The Northern Quarter, is long established and has an excellent reputation. Heathcote is well represented with a place off Deansgate and a new, modern, Spanish-style venture behind Piccadilly Gardens on New York Street called Grados. Abode at 107 Piccadilly is also believed to have brought something new to the Manchester dining scene.
Harvey Nichols is a traditional style restaurant and cocktail bar at 21 New Cathedral Street, with views onto Exchange Square, and is hard to beat if you like rubbing shoulders with Manchester's wealthy set. When the store is closed there is a dedicated entrance and lift at the side of the building. Their afternoon tea is worth a try, but you may prefer the older style version at The Midland Hotel or a new take on the theme at The Lowry Hotel.
At the top of King Street, in what was once Karim's Indian restaurant, the footballer Rio Ferdinand has recently pumped a load of money into Rosso an upmarket "Italian", which has so far had good, if not excellent, revues in the local press which praised the decor and very professional waiters more than the food.
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As you would expect from such a cosmopolitan city, Manchester has a huge selection of restaurants and eateries that serve a vast array of cuisines. Look hard enough and you will be able find any type of international food. It is also worth exploring some of the suburbs for superb, small independent bistros / restaurants. West Didsbury and Chorlton are noted for their large number of great eateries. If you can get there, the quaintly named and somewhat trendy village of Ramsbottom, just north of Bury, directly north of Manchester, is said to be "the new Chorlton", as regards restaurants, and THE place to eat .In Ramsbottom Ransoms has won many awards both regionally and nationally.The usual, well established UK chains like Cafe Rouge, Pizza Express, Nando's, Bella Italia etc are all to be found in Manchester city centre and out of town too.
free
Revolution on Oxford Road has a policy where your food is either ready within a 15 minutes wait or it's free. Worth going at busy times of the day!
Budget
There are hundreds of kebab and pizza shops on Oxford Road and in Fallowfield and Rusholme. In Rusholme, in particular, locals speak of the £10 curry, where if you bring your own drinks into the curry house, you should leave with change from a ten-pound note.
Some of the cheapest, long-established curry cafes, though, are still to be found in the back streets of the Northern Quarter. The Little Aladdin cafe at 72 High St on the corner of Turner St, near Arndale centre is a tiny little curry house with real charm. They serve a range of delicious curries and kebabs for £3-£4. Here's the menu: (http://www.onionring.co.u...).
On John Dalton Street, on the left, just up from Deansgate, going to Albert Square, is a gem of a cafe,Essy's, imagine a cross between an American diner and an old style British "café". It is run by a group of Iranians, for whom nothing is too much trouble. You can be satisfied there for under £5 with clean, welcoming table service. There are a couple of other similar places around town; in the Northern Quarter and one just behind Kendals, on King Street West.
On the opposite of Manchester Metropolitan University at 121 Oxford Road, there is a small fast food restaurant called "Pizza Co". Try their spicy chicken wings with fries, which are a hit among students in Manchester, for under £3. The spicy wings are very flavourful and are really not very spicy.