The Allotment Vegan Restaurant

Few restaurants have shaped the story of vegan dining in Greater Manchester quite like The Allotment. Launched in Stockport in 2016 under chef Matthew Nutter, it began life as a fine-dining experiment – multi-course tasting menus that treated plants with the precision usually reserved for haute cuisine. The Times even named it the UK’s Best Vegetarian Restaurant, before the team moved to Manchester in 2018.

Today, The Allotment has evolved into a more relaxed, sociable space on Deansgate – still inventive, still vegan, but now more about shared plates than tasting menus. Its Winter Menu focuses on warmth and comfort, with a build-your-own tapas board at the centre. Expect cauliflower wings crisped in sticky house sauce, jackfruit char siu bao buns, miso-buttered cabbage dotted with pomegranate, and maple-glazed carrots on hummus and roasted chickpeas. There’s also Tuscan butterbean stew, garlicky mushrooms in a rich wine sauce, and gluten-free pizzas topped with béchamel and spinach. Everything feels generous and vibrant – food that celebrates vegetables rather than disguising them.

The setting mirrors that ethos: relaxed, leafy and softly lit, with friendly staff who are happy to guide newcomers through the menu. It’s approachable but not ordinary, a place where you can linger over a glass of vegan wine and steadily work through a table of small plates.

From its early fine-dining roots to today’s more relaxed, sociable format, The Allotment remains a marker of how imaginative and diverse Manchester’s vegan food has become.