Author: Michael Dawson

Walk along Market Street on a grey Saturday and you can tell exactly where Illusion Museum Manchester begins before you see the sign. There’s laughter spilling out, parents negotiating “one last photo”, and groups of teens comparing camera angles. As a Manchester-based reporter, I went down to see why Illusion Museum Manchester has suddenly become the city centre stop everyone from Salford to Stockport is talking about. Inside, it feels less like a traditional museum and more like a photo studio crossed with a science lab. It’s compact, lively and full of families trying to work out why their mate…

For a brief stretch in 2023, Ikaro Manchester tried to rewrite the rules of high-end dining just off Deansgate. Set inside the former Panacea nightclub on John Dalton Street, the venue promised Wagyu steaks, sushi towers and champagne nights in the heart of Manchester city centre. Less than a year later, Ikaro Manchester had closed its doors. If you search Ikaro Manchester today, you are not looking for a table. You are looking for answers. What it was, how expensive it really was, and why a luxury concept in such a central location lasted barely nine months. This is what…

Live, local picks for things to do in Manchester today with free events, family ideas, food, gigs and hidden spots across Greater Manchester, plus prices, times and travel tips. At a glance: things to do in Manchester today If you are searching for things to do in Manchester today, this is the live local round up based on what is actually happening across the city and Greater Manchester. As of late morning, Market Street is busy but manageable, trams are steady through St Peter’s Square and there is already a noticeable after work buzz building around Deansgate and Spinningfields. Always…

In a city centre where new bars open regularly, Garten Bar Manchester has secured a visible position inside the Corn Exchange atrium. Set beneath the glass roof in one of Manchester’s busiest pedestrian corridors, it leans into brunch, steak and cocktails with an all day model that suits how locals actually use town. For people travelling in from across Greater Manchester, whether from Bury, Stockport or Salford, it has become an easy suggestion. It is central, recognisable and flexible enough to work for coffee, lunch, pre-train drinks or a planned bottomless session. What is Garten Bar Manchester? Garten Bar Manchester…

Big Mamma Group is officially bringing its flagship Italian concept to Manchester, choosing one of the city’s most closely watched developments for its northern debut. The Paris-founded hospitality company will open Circolo Popolare at No 1 St Michael’s, the Gary Neville-backed mixed-use scheme just off Deansgate. The 230-cover restaurant will mark Big Mamma Group’s first site in the north of England and its latest move in a widening UK expansion strategy. For Manchester, it is another signal that the city centre dining market continues to attract major international operators. What is opening and where? Circolo Popolare will take space inside…

Weather snow UK warnings have been issued across large parts of the country as a band of wintry precipitation moves east over the next 24 to 48 hours. In parts of northern England, daytime temperatures are struggling to rise above 1–2C, with wind chill making it feel several degrees lower. Manchester sits close to the main snow band, with higher parts of Greater Manchester and the Pennine fringe at risk of 3–8cm of settling snow and widespread ice during the morning commute. With fresh Met Office weather warnings snow alerts in force, disruption to travel, schools and NHS services is…

Snow is set to return to Greater Manchester as an 800-mile snow wall moves south across the UK. Forecast guidance suggests the first wintry bursts could arrive from late Friday morning, with more organised bands into the afternoon and evening. Weather models show the snow wall aligning along a sharp temperature boundary, meaning not every postcode will see the same conditions. Some areas face sleet. Others could see settling snow. Here is what the latest data shows. What is the 800-mile snow wall? The term snow wall is used informally by meteorologists to describe a long, continuous band of precipitation…

A major retirement village Greater Manchester proposal has been lodged for a countryside-edge site in Rochdale, setting up a significant planning decision for councillors in the months ahead. The retirement village Greater Manchester scheme would bring specialist later living housing to land on the borough’s rural fringe, close to existing residential streets but bordered by open fields. Rochdale Borough Council has validated the application and opened a formal consultation period, inviting residents to comment on the retirement village Greater Manchester plans. For Greater Manchester residents, this is not simply another housing application. The retirement village Greater Manchester development sits at…

Roughly 800,000 music tourists visit Manchester every year. Most head for arenas. The smarter ones head underground. They slip into candlelit rooms in the Northern Quarter. They queue outside brick basements off Tib Street. They sit ten feet from a saxophone solo that changes their week. The jazz club Manchester scene is no longer a niche footnote. It is one of the city’s most quietly powerful cultural forces. If you have not experienced live jazz in Manchester properly, you have not experienced the city at all. A City That Has Always Swung Manchester’s jazz roots stretch back to the 1950s.…

On a stretch of Swan Street where red brick meets railway arches, one converted garage changed Manchester nightlife. Since 2020, Ramona Manchester has evolved from a lockdown takeaway hatch into one of the Northern Quarter’s most recognisable independent venues. What began as a Detroit-style pizza experiment is now something larger. A margarita bar, outdoor courtyard, DJ space and cultural anchor that reflects a wider shift in how Manchester socialises. In a city where hospitality openings come and go, Ramona Manchester has endured. That endurance tells a bigger story about Northern Quarter regeneration, independent business resilience and the evolution of Manchester…