Let’s take a trip to some of Manchester’s best little hideaways - a cafe in a craft studio and a bar inside a pawn shop.
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00:00Hi I'm Theo with Manchester World and today I'm out in the city because I've
00:03been asked to point out a couple of the best hidden gem spots here in Manchester.
00:07Now there are tons of great independent places that serve the city in tons of
00:12brilliant ways that deserve their flowers but in terms of hidden gems what
00:15we're looking for is places where you enter a building not really sure what to
00:18expect and inside you find somewhere amazing and the two places that we're
00:22going to look at today are just that. Now right now we're stood outside of
00:25Manchester's Craft and Design Centre and we're going to go into Fred's which is
00:28one of the best cafes here in the city and later on we're going to pop along
00:32to Dusk Till Corn which from the outside looks as though it's a pawn shop and
00:36from the inside is a brilliant little cocktail bar. Starting with Fred's though
00:40and the Manchester Craft and Design Centre is based in the northern quarter
00:43just around the corner from the likes of Almost Famous and Nell's Pizza. It's a
00:48prime location for a great cafe and in September one was set up. Now Fred's has
00:55taken social media by storm since it opened. At first a one-man operation run
01:00purely by the owner it now has taken on a number of members of staff sheerly to
01:05try and keep up with the volume of customers and it's easy to see why it's
01:10been so successful with a brilliantly ranged menu, some great scotch eggs on
01:14offer there as well and I vividly recall having one of the best cookies of my
01:18life from this little place. It is outstanding in terms of food and in
01:22terms of coffee and considering that it's a solo venture it's truly
01:26remarkable the amount of success that it's had in recent times and you would
01:29never guess walking into a craft and design centre that you would find a cafe of
01:33this quality. We are hopefully going to have a video up purely on Fred's later
01:37this week but for now we'll jump straight across to Dusk Till Porn which
01:41is a brilliant little cocktail bar based in Stevenson Square and the surprising
01:46part of this is obviously as you can see it looks completely like a pawn shop
01:50from the outside with guitars, TVs, jewellery all hanging up in the window.
01:54It looks to anyone as though it's a place where you go and try and sell a
01:58watch to bring some extra cash in but instead when you walk in you're greeted
02:02by a brilliant interior, cool jukeboxes, a really classy layout, a great cocktail
02:07menu, it's happy hour as well between four and eight o'clock and I've got to
02:11say the vibes inside are just completely immaculate. As you can see it's got this
02:14sleek fresh look with a great range of alcohol behind the bar and a massive
02:19range of really exciting cocktails too. The one that I had was packed with
02:23Midori, rum, loads of ice and then this awesome sort of coconutty cream that was
02:29injected into the cocktail at the last minute and really gave it an extra zhuzh.
02:33I sat in there for ages and could have sat in there for much much longer it was
02:37a great time and it is absolutely well worth a visit. Even just for the
02:41experience of walking in expecting a pawn shop and seeing something
02:43completely different. So there you are between Fred's and Dusty Till Pawn you
02:49have two amazing hidden gems right here in the northern quarter that are well
02:53worth a visit. Come down give them a try and follow Manchester World for more.
02:57See you again soon.