MATTHEW Taylor, newly appointee head chef at Manchester Art Gallery’s Gallery Café, has moved swiftly to extend the all-day menu to include summery bakes, seasonal salads and fresh, light meals. Good news – the toasties remain!
Born and raised in Bury, Taylor has moved from the nearby Hotel Gotham, where he was awarded 2 AA Rosettes. He takes over from former exec chef, Mary-Ellen McTague, who reopened the Gallery Café in 2017
The new menu adds sweet and savoury brioche buns, air-dried bacon muffins, homemade Danish pastries and omelettes to the breakfast menu (available from 10am daily). Lunch (11.30am-3pm) may now include chicken schnitzel with heritage potatoes, celery, apple and goat’s cheese salad with broad beans and hazelnuts or salt0baked celeriac salad with shoots and barley(below); Moroccan-style couscous with fresh apricot, pomegranate and toasted seeds plus a range of other dishes. Read the full menu here.
Vegan and gluten-free soups and vegetarian tarts change daily and cakes, pastries and scones are baked in the Gallery kitchen each day. Match new recipes – such as Hummingbird cake or apricot and marmalade Bakewell tart – with a cup of Manchester Art Gallery’s own coffee specially created by local roasters Second City Coffee.
Other regional suppliers, such as Manchester Veg People and Noone’s, are used where possible. Fresh herbs and vegetables, grown in the Gallery’s own kitchen garden, are included in a number of dishes too. Look out for rainbow chard, kale, fresh mint and nasturtium flowers and leaves, all of which are in season right now.
The Gallery Café is located on the ground floor of Manchester Art Gallery. Guests dine in art-lined dining and drawing rooms while the expanded al fresco seating area to the front of the building includes tables running the length of Manchester Art Gallery’s façade.
The Gallery Café, Manchester Art Gallery, 81 Princess Street, Manchester M1 4HR. 0161 235 8888.