Best Speakeasy and Hidden Bars in Manchester

The original and still the best. On Shudehill, tucked between a phone repair shop and whatever else is on that stretch this month. From the outside it looks exactly like a launderette – because it is one. Working washing machines, a change machine, the lot. You walk in, pick up the red phone on the wall, and someone asks if you have a booking. If you do, the door buzzes open and you’re into a cocktail bar that seats maybe 20 people. The drinks are excellent – proper cocktails made by people who care, changed seasonally, around £11-13 each. The atmosphere is unlike anywhere else in Manchester because of the sheer smallness of the place. It’s intimate by necessity. You will absolutely need a booking. They release slots online and they go fast. Don’t just turn up and expect to sweet-talk your way in – they’ve heard it all before and the answer is always no.

On Brazennose Street, just off Albert Square. There’s no sign. The entrance is a plain door that you’d walk past a hundred times without noticing. Inside it’s small, dark, candlelit, and the cocktails are serious. The bartenders know their craft and will happily make you something off-menu if you describe what you’re in the mood for. The smoked Negroni has a reputation for a reason – they smoke it at the table and the theatre of it adds something genuine to the experience. Around £12 per cocktail. It fills up after work on weekdays and by 9pm on weekends there’s usually a wait. No formal booking system last time I checked – it’s first come, first served, which keeps it interesting.

On Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter, underneath a barber shop. The lab theme could easily be gimmicky but they pull it off because the drinks are genuinely well-made. Cocktails in beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks, ingredients measured with precision, and a menu that changes often enough to keep regulars interested. The basement space is atmospheric – low ceilings, dark walls, the kind of place where you lean across the table and talk close. Cocktails £11-14. Walk-ins are possible early in the evening but weekends get packed. The entrance isn’t exactly hidden – there’s a small sign – but you still get people walking past it without realising there’s a bar below their feet.

Below the Gotham Hotel on King Street. The entrance requires a code, which changes regularly and gets posted on their social media. That’s the gimmick and it works – there’s something satisfying about punching in a code and having a door swing open to reveal a cocktail bar that most people on the street above don’t know exists. The interior is all dark wood, leather banquettes, and low lighting. It looks expensive because it is – cocktails are £13-15 – but the quality justifies it. The Old Fashioned is outstanding. Smart dress code enforced, which in Manchester terms means no trainers and preferably a collar. Book for groups, walk in if there’s two of you and you’re early.

On Bridge Street. This one has two faces. Upstairs is a big, busy, perfectly good cocktail bar that most people know about. Downstairs – and you have to ask or know to look for the entrance – is a smaller, quieter cocktail room with its own menu and a different atmosphere entirely. The downstairs space is the one worth seeking out. It’s calmer, the drinks are more considered, and it feels properly separate from the main bar above. Around £11-13 per drink. The Spiritualist isn’t the most hidden bar on this list, but the downstairs room has an exclusivity that the main bar doesn’t, and most first-timers leave without ever knowing it was there.

Below the Corn Exchange on Exchange Street. You go down a staircase that feels like it shouldn’t lead anywhere and end up in a moody, cavernous cocktail bar. The menu is organised by flavour profile – citrus, smoky, bitter, sweet – rather than by spirit, which makes ordering easier than it sounds. They do a tasting flight of three smaller cocktails if you genuinely can’t decide, which I respect. The space has an almost medieval feel to it – stone walls, arched ceilings – and the lighting is the kind of dim where you might not recognise someone across the room. Cocktails £12-14. It’s not technically a speakeasy because there is a sign, but the entrance is easy to miss and the below-ground location gives it that secretive feel.

On Deansgate Mews, which is itself a slightly hidden street running parallel to Deansgate. Dusk is newer than most of the bars on this list and feels it – the design is contemporary, warm-toned, and deliberately photogenic. The cocktail menu rotates quarterly and every iteration I’ve tried has been strong. The team behind it came from established Manchester bars, so the standard was high from day one. It’s not hidden in the traditional speakeasy sense – there’s a door and a sign – but the Mews location means foot traffic is low and it maintains a members-club sort of quietness even on busy nights. Cocktails £12-15. Good for a date or a catch-up where you actually want to hear the other person talk.

Part of the appeal of these places is the discovery. Telling you the exact location of every hidden entrance defeats the purpose, and the bars themselves prefer it that way – The Washhouse has survived this long partly because every article about it gives just enough information without turning it into a tourist queue. So here’s the general approach: for The Washhouse, you’re looking at Shudehill and a launderette. For Speak in Code, check their Instagram for the current entry code. For Behind Closed Doors, walk down Brazennose Street slowly and look for the door with no sign. For Science & Industry, look for the barber shop on Thomas Street and go downstairs. For The Spiritualist, just ask the staff upstairs – they’ll point you in the right direction.

Budget £40-60 per person for a night out at these places. Cocktails run £11-15 and you’ll have three or four over an evening. Most of the speakeasy-style bars seat fewer than 30 people, which means they fill up fast and stay full. Booking where possible is always better than hoping. Dress smart at Speak in Code and The Washhouse. The NQ bars are more relaxed – Science & Industry won’t turn you away for wearing trainers. And a genuine piece of advice: don’t go to a hidden bar and immediately take photos for your story. Read the room. Some of these places exist specifically to give people a night away from all that. Respect it and you’ll have a better time.