Dishoom Manchester

Dishoom is the homage-restaurant group founded by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, who opened their first site in Covent Garden in 2010 as a loving tribute to the old Irani cafés of Bombay — the all-day institutions built by Zoroastrian Persian immigrants. The Manchester restaurant, which opened in 2018, sits inside a grand former Freemasons' Hall on Bridge Street and leans into the building's past: the design nods to the Lodge Rising Star of Western India (founded in Bombay in 1843) and the story of Indian Freemasonry, with marble café tables, portraits on the walls and light pouring through enormous stained-glass windows. As at every Dishoom, waiting guests are handed complimentary cups of chai, and a basement Permit Room bar — named for the licences once required to drink under the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949 — sits below the main hall.

Dishoom takes its non-alcoholic drinking as seriously as its cocktails, running a full section of alcohol-free 'Teetotal Tipples' rather than a token mocktail or two. The Sober Summer Negroni layers green apple and apricot over no-alcohol gin, no-alcohol vermouth and a no-alcohol bitter syrup, finished with desiccated apple; the Marine Drive Spritz lengthens Crossip non-alcoholic spirit with Cabernet rosé grape juice and soda; and the Crystal All-Clear Mojito muddles a house cordial of mint, cardamom and lime with soda and non-alcoholic aperitivo. There is a Teetotal Espresso Martini of Baba's espresso, black cardamom, cinnamon syrup and ginger, alongside more experimental builds — Mr Xavier's Mule (a chai-charged cold brew lashed with ginger beer and orange cordial, plus lion's mane and turmeric), the Balaram Street Iced CB-Tea (Darjeeling, jasmine and a grapefruit-mango fizz laced with CBD), the Expert Instructress's Matcha Sour (matcha, lime and moringa under a velvety kefir-yoghurt top) and the No-Hafta Colada, a frozen pineapple-and-coconut number with dragon fruit and papaya.

Beyond the mock-cocktails, the alcohol-free range is genuinely deep. Zero and low-alcohol beers include Kingfisher 0.0, an ON Beer IPA and a Collider Unwind session IPA brewed with lion's mane and ashwagandha, and there is an alcohol-free organic sparkling wine, Selbach-Oster 'Funkelwürtz Zero'. The Indian soft-drink canon is done properly too: thick, cold lassis run from Mango & Fennel and Rose & Cardamom to Salted, plus wellness-leaning options such as the Raspberry Super-Lassi (kefir and tremella mushroom) and a 20g-protein Beyond Breakfast lassi. House Chai is brewed the traditional way or with oat milk, and there are cooling sharbats — Watermelon, Passion Fruit and the tart-salty Kala Khatta — a fresh Nimbu Soda, nostalgic Indian bottled sodas including Thums Up, Limca and Pallonji's raspberry, fresh juices, Ayurvedic-leaning wellness shots and Baba's own Chikmagalur coffee, making Dishoom one of the most rewarding places in Manchester to eat and drink well without alcohol.