The best places for party and group bookings in Manchester

Panning a do with serious muso credentials? Band on the Wall is available to hire for live shows, club nights and other public events. It is also a great venue hire choice for private parties, wedding receptions and corporate events. If your guests want to appear on the same stage as artists including Pixies, Fall Out Boy, Blossoms and Joy Division, this is the place. Plus they’ve recently revamped their bar – think copper fittings, mid-century lighting and velvet – so a beer-stained carpet sort of music venue this is not, and a bona fide party destination it is.

The Beeswing is an ultra-modern wine and tapas bar in the trendy Kampus neighbourhood just on the edge of Canal Street, a few minutes walk from Piccadilly. It has a stunning terrace which is an enviable sun trap in summer months and it gets the sun until right up into the evening. You can hire the entire restaurant and bar space for events, and they can also provide a variety of Mediterranean-inspired menus to cater to whatever your heart desires, especially if what your heart desires is tapas, drinks and a good time.

Every bit of The Black Friar in Salford is available to hire including the whole 200 capacity restaurant. You can also hire The Tavern – a fully covered and heated outdoor space, The Garden – a large, landscaped outdoor space with loads of lush plants and flowers, The Sanctuary – a cosy intimate room with leather sofas and vintage furniture, and The Glass Room – a modern conservatory.

Think The Blues Kitchen and you think a joyous mismatch of antique tiles, lots of stained glass, and dive bar relics. On the ground floor you’ll find blues, soul, and R&B performed nightly, artists ranging from homegrown talent to international stars. Upstairs, the concert hall hosts bigger touring acts between two and four times each week, with DJs and live bands visiting on Fridays and Saturdays. With the ‘Kitchen’ side of things serving up brunches, burgers and steaks as well as shareable small plates, this is a place to book if you want to have a good meal followed by a good boogie. Plus, there are loads of different packages available depending on your party size. If there’s about 50 of you, you can hire the newly unveiled Playroom – a private party room with it’s own bar and karaoke set up.

You know them for their vast sizzling platters of meat, street food bites like the (incredibly) viral ‘naanwich’ and ever-jovial host Shashi, but now you can head to Chef Platters – their newer spot in Rusholme – for a party. They have a vast private dining space, you can pre-order from their vast menu of Indian classics, sharing platters and street food. Bring your own booze, bring your own tunes. Job’s a good’un.

Chotto Matte have only just arrived on the Manchester scene, and if a place was ever purpose-built for parties, it’s this place. Peruvian-Japanese cuisine means that it’s all about robata grills and sushi platters, plus their are panoramic views of the city skyline, private dining rooms and flexible spaces for all sorts of celebrations. If you’re pushing the boat out, it’s a no-brainer – there’s even a dedicated events team to help you sort everything out.

Italian party spot, Cicrcolo Popolare – set among 5,000 bottles of vintage liquor, 288sqm of greenery, and over 300 twinkling festoon lights – is celebrating its first Christmas in Manchester. Sneak past the gleaming quartz bar and enter ‘Circolino’ the 24-seat dining room which is available for private hire. Full venue hire options are available for up to 300 guests seated.

Located in a spectacular grand two-grade* listed building, and a short walk from Manchester’s bustling Christmas Markets, The Cut & Craft Manchester is ‘glitzy Christmas’ in a nutshell. With an exclusive private dining area set within the historic bank vaults, it offers a showstopping setting for Christmas gatherings for up to 24 people seated or 45 standing, group bar bookings and semi private and full private venue options are available for up to 150-200 guests.

A sprawling industrial hangar of a building, if you can’t find a spot for your group in Diecast then we simply cannot help you. The place is just ridiculously vast. Leno Ex Machina is one element: a 5,000 capacity, 250,000 square foot space for eating, drinking, dancing and debauch-ing. This is where Manchester’s biggest warehouse kitchen can be found, with Pizza Ex Machina one of the main highlights. Meanwhile, Italian small plates, wood-fired Piadino, and burgers are also on offer. Then there’s the outside space, one of the city’s biggest, with various BBQs, daiquiri bars and rentable caravans for private gatherings. There’s a whole page on their website dedicated to the different spaces you can hire, depending on what sort of party you’re having.

When you thought it was no longer possible to innovate in the drinking space, along came shuffleboard, a new contender when it comes to table top pub sports. Electric Shuffle on Deansgate is 11,000 square feet of the stuff, with 15 tables and a capacity of 450. Up to 32 of you can play shuffleboard together or simply book a table at the bar, and events of all sizes are catered for too. Whether it’s a work do, or you fancy shaking up your usual Saturday night script, it’s one to try.

Simon Shaw’s acclaimed tapas restaurant is a popular spot for any occasion and its rooftop terrace is always named checked in any outdoor drinking and dining round up worth its salt. But did you know you can hire the entire top floor of El Gato Negro including its famed roof terrace (with retractable roof) for a private event? Well now you do. The flexible space is obviously ideal for a special party, holding up to 100 guests and the team are on hand to provide some of the city’s best food as well as cocktails, live entertainment or business support.u

One of Manchester’s most party-centric mega venues, Escape to Freight Island is geared up to host gatherings intimate, vast or anywhere inbetween. There are loads of different spaces you can hire out, like the urban oasis that is The Plant Room, the 500 capacity The Platform with excellent view of all the live entertainment, or The Terrace, with great views and a ‘calm above the storm’ feel. There’s even a 30-capacity private dining room, if that’s more the type of thing you’re after.

Located on Peter Street, the imposing building which houses the exhibition is a stand-out, even among a crowded field. It tracks: this used to be the location of Manchester’s Natural History Museum, before the learned institution moved to Oxford Road. Today, the space boasts a late night bar, 400-capacity performance space, and seven exhibition areas for visual work. That’s in addition to the carefully aligned independent kitchens Baraxaturi, Osma and Jaan – a rustic Basque-style grill, a super-sleek Scandi small plates place and a Lebanese spot where everything is served on freshly baked flatbreads. So a proper foodie-led experience with guaranteed party vibes. You can book a table, for a large party or the whole place.

Sometimes your long-overdue get together just calls for a curry night, and hardly anywhere does them better than this place. Winner of 2023’s Nations Curry Award, Best Nepalese Restaurant, among countless other trophies, The Great Kathmandu cabinet has no doubt been extended several times by now. A genuine institution in upmarket West Didsbury, it has occupied a prominent position on the tree-lined, eatery-dense Burton Road since long before the street was synonymous with hospitality. They happily accommodate big bookings, just use the enquiry form online to get it all sorted.

Deansgate’s Hawksmoor building was once a Victorian courthouse, and it’s full of evocative nods to that: parquet flooring, salvaged from another legal institution nearby, panelling from Sandwell Collage and glazed bricks from an old lavatory in Liverpool. Matched with baby soft leather-backed seating, dark woods and early-modernist light fittings, it’s a perfect backdrop for a classic steakhouse experience, only elevated. Plus, it almost goes without saying, the steaks are some of the best you’ll ever taste. So, a pretty good spot for a decadent party (we’ve seen wedding receptions in there and everything). You can book out a part of the restaurant, or one of their stately private dining rooms, depending on quite how decadent you want it to be.

House of Social is a great spot for festive catch ups with friends. No bookings required, simply pop down and order from five independent kitchens – Dough Religion, Choi Wan, OK Taqueria, Mughli and Burger & Beyond. Large party bookings and semi-private areas are available for Christmas.

Lina Stores offers multiple ways to celebrate the Christmas season across its restaurant, delicatessen and Bar Lina. In the restaurant, guests of up to 30 people (or semi-private hire for 60 people) will enjoy a festive Italian feast – perfect for sharing in groups. The 4-course ‘Natale da Lina festive’ menu includes a selection of antipasti, fresh pasta, secondi and dolci. In the delicatessen, the large communal table in the open-plan delicatessen is available for groups of up to 15 guests for aperitivo or dining from the ‘Natale da Lina’ sharing menu. Next door, Bar Lina, is perfect for group bookings of up to 25 seated guests, and exclusive Christmas parties for up to 120 guests.

Maray’s French-meets-Middle-Eastern menu lends itself well to party food. Their menu is full of tempting mezze dishes like whipped goats cheese and cauliflower bhajis, as well as slow-cooked mains like lamb kofta and spiced lentil and rice mujadara. They’ve got a comprehensive vegan menu as well, so this one is ideal if you need to cater to various dietary requirements. You can book up to 90 guests, which is the whole space, or any number up to that. Disco cauliflower for 90, then?

A little bit more of a sedate affair than others on the list, Pot Kettle Black now has two venues in the city centre. PKB’s Angel Gardens venue on the edge of Ancoats is available to hire for private events. The bright, airy and flexible space with its characteristic floor to ceiling windows has room for 150 standing or 100 seated guests. Split across two levels, PKB Angel Gardens has its own in-house kitchen and an attractive feature bar making it ideal for everything from weddings to business events.

With options for up to 400 guests, Pip Restaurant – and the Treehouse Hotel in which it dwells more generally – have loads of different options for group catering and partying, with seasonal feasts from the menu of Mary-Ellen McTague. If you’re after a rustic, fauna-filled and importantly – delicious – gathering, get in contact with the Pip team and they’ll make it happen.t

Pitch is not your usual driving range. Using state-of-the-art technology, you can simulate driving from the tee, approach shots and putting, with software analysing shot speed, trajectory and the like, as well as digitally recreating world famous courses like the iconic Old Course at St Andrews or California’s Pebble Beach. For those less competitive – or just golf curious or simply weather adverse – there are a stack of other fun games to play, with each simulator bay fitting up to eight people. In the middle, there’s a central bar, lounge and kitchen, serving up great cocktails and food, with its own bespoke sound system, screens for watching live sports in style and a few free-to-use, full-length shuffleboard tables thrown in too. Golf purist or not, this is a seriously fun night out.

Purrezza are not just ‘good for vegans’ and ‘good for gluten free’, they absolutely excel at it. They were the first vegan pizzeria in the UK, and since then have gone on to create some rather impressive revolutions in the world of plant-based food – most noticeably spending years in their food laboratory creating a mozzarella that tastes and melts just like dairy. Experience that mozzarella (or not-zzarella, if you’d rather) sat atop a black truffle pizza or even a ‘pepperoni’ and agave one, so no-one misses out on the hot honey hype. They gladly welcome group bookings of more than eight people, so if you want to throw a gathering that’s truly inclusive, get in touch with them.

Located at an old MOT garage just off once-almost-forgotten Swan Street, Ramona is far more than just Manchester’s leading destination for Detroit style cheese and tomato pies, frozen margaritas and debauchery. There’s a roster of live party bands, DJs and roaring fire pits too, so you can find a zone which matches whatever vibe you’re after. They happily accommodate big bookings – it’s a big old MOT garage – but you need to get in touch for bookings over 14 people.

Nowhere screams baroque hedonism like The Refuge, which has a stately presence on one of Manchetser’s most important thoroughfares, opposite Oxford Road Station (so an ideal location to get your pals together for a big do). Inside is a collection of different spaces, each seemingly more decadent than the next, ranging from a games room called The Den, to an inside-meet-outside Winter Gardens, as well as the super-intimate private dining room. You can get in touch with them about all the options.

The San Carlo family of restaurants, and especially their original spot on King Street, are an established favourite for refined-but-relaxed Italian dining. If you’re planning an intimate get together of up to 35 people, their Private Dining Room fits the bill, and you can choose from an extensive set menu, as well as a special ‘Christmas Fayre’ menu with indulgent pastas and roasted meats as well as panna cotta and pistachio torte. And what’s more Christmassy than that? 

The Tropical Reef Room at Deansgate’s Sexy Fish is a stunning private space to hold a celebration with added drama (and fish). You and your guests can enjoy an exceptional menus of Asian-inspired delicacies, with mixologists and sommeliers on hand mixing memorable creations. The space holds up to 36 guests, with packages from £46 per head.

Opposite Manchester Central and across an ornamental pond from The Bridgewater Hall seems an unlikely spot for a modern food hall to make sense, but make sense Society does. With a short but perfectly formed list of traders including Chaat Cart, Noi Quattro and Yoki Social Table, and the beer’s by Hebden Bridge’s finest Vocation, it’s a consistently crowd-pleasing spot for some pre-culture refreshments. They happily accommodate large group bookings, but only for up to two hours. 

Tattu is well known for its ultra modern, glossy purple and black interiors complete with a huge cherry blossom tree. Did you know that you can hire the entire venue at Tattu for an extra special event though? Now that would be one impressive party. Menu packages featuring the restaurant’s own unique brand of contemporary Chinese food and show-stopping cocktails are available, as well as other bespoke elements that you can discuss with the team.

One of the original Northern Quarter bars and still one of the coolest, Trof is famous for its Sunday roast and laid back vibes, but it also has a number of rooms you can hire to host your party. The exposed brick Bourbon Room with its own private bar, sound system, projector and more holds up to 40 seated or 60 standing and is only available to hire on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Montana Room with booth seating, colourful flamingo print wallpaper and bright red working Smeg fridge holds 16 seated or 26 standing and can be hired Wednesday to Sunday. This room also has its own jukebox and a projector. You can also hire the whole venue, if that suits your party ambition better.

Helmed by award-winning chef Shaun Moffat, it’s all about simple decor, quality meat-centric menu and playfully nostalgic dishes – from cockles to cold cuts. Their cow-shaped gravy boats have become a bit of a cult phenomenon in themselves, too. Their dining room happily accommodates group booking, just be sure to DM them if there’s more than eight of you.