A lot of these dishes have a real sense of the dramatic, delivering that all-important gasp moment each time thanks to arrangements, colours and textures that all connect with the season. More than most, SOURCE is an aesthete’s restaurant.

What the Eagle Inn did for Salford, the Grafton Arms is set to do for the expanding Oxford Road area: all about the underground music scene without being spit and sawdust about it. The team behind it all knows that the counterculture exists outside trends and algorithms, so don’t expect any AI-generated art on the walls anytime soon.

The Beeswing is probably the prettiest restaurant in Manchester, with well-placed posies everywhere, huge daylight-welcoming windows and multiple walls of wine bottles. At heart it’s a tapas bar, but in reality the Beeswing team have the freedom to try out new ideas and move beyond the default Iberian dishes.

Zadie’s is the flagship restaurant of the brand-spanking-new Medlock Square. It’s flashy, snazzy and even a little bit jazzy. The cuisine is a mix of Italian and Japanese, which is a new one on me, but it’s been around since the late 1800s, known as Itameshi.

Hawksmoor has added The Steak Flight across its UK restaurants, including Manchester, a sharing platter of four dry-aged, charcoal-grilled steaks from British farms served with tasting notes comparing breed and feed. The four cuts are a Wildfell Wagyu sirloin from Norfolk, a Hawksmoor Farms grass-fed rump, a Longhorn rib-eye from the North Yorkshire farms Hawksmoor has used since opening 20 years ago, and an Aberdeen Angus fillet.

It costs £200, is recommended for four to five people and needs no advance booking, alongside a new own-label Kaiken x Hawksmoor Mendoza Malbec.

TEST DRIVE, a new comedy festival, runs from Tuesday 17 to Friday 20 November at Red Arch, the community events space and bar on Red Bank, with 13 comedians performing in its new shipping container bookshop.

The line-up includes Josh Jones (Last One Laughing, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown), BBC New Comedy Award winner Anna Thomas, Leicester Square New Comedian of the Year Will Owen and Paul Campbell, named a Rolling Stone Rising Star of Comedy. Tickets cost £25, with individual shows also on sale.

Freight Island’s Christmas programme opens on Thursday 26 November, with festive specials from its independent food traders and a new Christmas BBQ serving a festive BBQ tray. Party Tables start at £30 per person to spend on food and drink, while Dining Tables offer a set menu at £42 for two courses or £48 for three, with private hire available for larger groups. New this year, The Magic of Christmas turns the outdoor area into a family festive village of ten interactive stops, including Mrs Claus’ Gingerbread Kitchen and Santa’s Lodge, running Thursday to Sunday until 24 December.

The Lowry Hotel is rebranding itself The Lowry Express for Christmas, starting with a lights switch-on from 5.30pm on Thursday 26 November, with carol singers and hot chocolate. On Monday 21 December from 11.30am, Oli the Choc runs a children’s chocolate-making masterclass at £25 per child, including food and drinks. Festive packages include a Christmas Day lunch in The River Restaurant with an overnight stay from £500 for two, a New Year’s Eve dinner, stay and champagne package from £350 for two, and overnight stays from £160.

The Horse & Jockey on Chorlton Green, run by the team behind Salford’s The Black Friar, has dressed its 1908 mock-Tudor frontage for Christmas with an installation by floral artist Kelly Louise Chapman, reindeer on the roof included. Its festive menu, created by executive chef Ben Chaplin and the kitchen team, runs from Wednesday 18 November, with two courses from £33 and three from £39. Dishes include scallop and smoked salmon pie, turkey ballotine with chestnut and sausage meat, a root veg tarte tatin and Black Forest trifle, with Joseph Holt’s beers on draught.

Stock Exchange Hotel marks the building’s 120th anniversary with A Night in History, a black-tie charity gala at its restaurant tender on Saturday 12 December. Guests arrive from 7pm for a reception, followed by a three-course dinner by two Michelin-starred chef Niall Keating and the tender team on the former trading floor, with entertainment and prize draws through the evening.

A midnight toast marks exactly 120 years since the Manchester Stock Exchange’s ceremonial opening on 13 December 1906, with funds raised going to Hospitality Beats Cancer and The Joe Thompson Foundation.

The Black Friar in Salford has turned its pub into an après-ski retreat for Christmas, with purpose-built ski lifts in an installation by Cheshire floral artist Kelly Louise Chapman. Head chef Ben Chaplin’s festive menu runs from Monday 16 November to Thursday 31 December, with dishes including turkey ballotine, root veg tarte tatin, the pub’s steak and ale pie and a Christmas pudding knickerbocker glory. A £35 festive canapé menu returns, alongside bookable spaces from heated winter cabins for up to eight to The Tavern, a covered garden space for 70.

The Ivy Spinningfields has put a 39-foot polar bear outside The Pavilion on Byrom Street, where it stays for the festive season. To mark the unveiling, the restaurant is donating 371 polar bear teddies to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, one for each of its beds. Donations to the hospital’s charity can be made here.

Nottingham’s Coco Tang opens its second site in Spinningfields on Tuesday 24 November, a two-storey Vietnamese venue with a café and bakery on the ground floor serving bánh mì and Phin coffee from 8am. Upstairs, a 175-seat restaurant styled on 1950s Saigon serves phở, shaking beef and sharing platters. A 200-capacity cocktail club behind it hosts DJs from Thursday to Saturday, open until 3am at weekends.

Bowlers Exhibition Centre hosts Manchester Coffee Festival, featuring Sydney fire-roasted coffee brand Wood Fired Coffee. The event runs from 20 to 22 November, where visitors can try WFC’s slow-roasted coffee at stand B1. The family-run brand, founded by Mark Pupo on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, roasts over wood fire, unsurprisingly enough. For more info and purchases of beans, ground coffee and capsules, you’ll be wanting a trip to the site.

Already thinking about Crimbo? Butter Bird in Ancoats serves its first Christmas feasting menu, Gather Your Flock, from 1 to 24 December, with three courses for tables of six or more at £45 a head, plus a glass of Crémant on arrival.

The main event is half a tea-brined rotisserie chicken per guest, passed down the table on platters with sides such as chicken-salt potatoes and Parmesan sprouts, while vegetarians get spiced roast cauliflower. Pre-order only, Monday to Saturday.