Federal Cafe Bar — Restaurant in Manchester

It was my first visit to Federal. I came on a working day at around 8.30am. The coffee was brilliant and the atmosphere was great. Shame I didn’t try any food but it looked great on other guests’ plates.

I’m giving 4/5 because there were couple of things that confused me slightly.

There was a small info board in front of the cafe which says ‘if you’d like to be seated wait here, but come straight in if you’d like a takeaway”. I sort of waited outside but then a staff member was waving to me meaning “come in”. So not sure why they took it out maybe preparing for more people later…

I had 40 minutes to drink my coffee before going to the meeting. I thought I’d quickly do a couple of things on my laptop, but lady from the staff members came to me and said that it’s “no-laptops cafe”. I understand that sometimes people could come, order one cup of coffee and sit in a cafe for 2-3 hours, but the ‘no-laptop’ wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the internet or at the entrance. I think a simple ‘we have a 1-1,5h limit on the tables’ is a better way. I took away my laptop but felt a bit unwelcome and slightly strange as though I’m breaking some rules.

But these are just minor points, the main thing that the coffee was excellent, everyone was friendly and it was a great...

I come up to Manchester almost every weekend and had Federal Cafe in my bookmarks. It was pretty busy on a Saturday afternoon and the staff told me that it would be a fifteen minute wait for a table but I ended up only waiting for a few minutes.

I initially wanted to get bennies but felt it would be too heavy as I have dinner plans in about two to three hours. The menu comes with a QR code where you can place your order or you can come up to the till and order there.

I grabbed the iced matcha latte and smoked salmon bagel. I realized later on that the cafe is Australian after I saw Milo and Tim Tams.

1. Iced Matcha Latte

I can see my drink being made across from me and it came fairly quickly after ordering. The matcha itself was not too bad although I wish it had more matcha in it (could be just the amount of milk added that made it less prominent).

2. Smoked Salmon Bagel

It was not bad, the lemon juice gave it a nice flavour. But overall, the taste was standard.

Five stars because the service was great and the staff was very friendly and attentive. I would come back to try other brunch dishes.

I was expecting it to have a cafe vibe where I would be able to do a bit of work but it felt more like a restaurant. It’s also...

Wanted to try Federal for ages and we ended up trying the Deansgate cafe on their 6th year anniversary(!) and honestly, lived up to the hype. The staff are so aware of who joins the queue outside, came straight out to greet everyone, hand out menus and update on wait times. When we got seated (there were 5 of us) after 15 mins of waiting - not a complaint, just adding to make people aware of how popular this place is and it didn’t feel long at all - we could order straight away because we had the menu the whole time. Ordering online is super easy and signing up to their loyalty/reward scheme was too and it’s going to be worth it as I’ll defo be coming back. We got the Turkish eggs, French toast (pictured), avo and smoked salmon on toast and eggs benny with multiple coffees. 12/10 experience. Servers were so nice, food and coffee was excellent and the ordering system was so good you could tweak your orders to exactly how you wanted - which isn’t normally possible on online ordering systems, big plus!!!! I personally love Deansgate anyway so location to me is spot on but I’ll be sure to go to their other cafes as well to complete the set. And the toilet was clean and smelt lovely !

Love love love can’t wait...