Cocktails at the Artisan Manchester

Wedding season beginneth and what precedes that is the hen party.  Whilst boys seem hell bent to make sure their stag have the worst, miserable time of their life, for girls it is about making sure the bride is happy.  This particular one was a very classy affair in Manchester with a spa day, followed by dinner and drinks at the Artisan.  (although I won't dwell the fact 90% of the hens turned up to their spa treatment late because of traffic exacerbated by the insane rain, the apartment we were staying at being a crime scene and the bride being late for her own hen dinner...).  Manchester is clearly hen metropolis; I spotted 5 parties whilst waiting at Manchester station - all distinctly varying in class.

Everything about the Artisan is beautiful.  The restaurant is like an industrial building with exposed brickwork made beautiful with great lighting, art and eccentric quirks like the retro photo booth which I'm gutted I didn't utilise.  Also, the people are also gorgeous as well, there must have been some secret code to only let stunning people in.  Of course this is why me and my friends were there *modest*.  I loved the music there as well, just really cool.  Gush over...kind of.

I had the Artisan which took me a while to decide because there were so many great sounding drinks.  Green mark vodka (a Russian wheat vodka), Aperol, pomegranate, mint, lime and apple juice.  It was so delicious that it was the only cocktails I had that night.

Unfortunately the subtle lighting which is great for atmosphere made it a nightmare to take a decent photo

Me being a greedy pig with the delicious pulled pork burger

The Artisan was absolutely perfect for a classy hen do dinner (despite the sash, we weren't the crazy group - there was a REALLY drunk birthday group on the table next to us which was made all the more interesting when it got to the singing part) and the kind of place that girls love to go to; there was a whole boudoir area outside the girl's toilets which was clearly made for posing and selfies (I hold my hand up there).  Ergo, the men clock onto this and also head over knowing they will have an absolute pick from the (gorgeous) litter.  The food was fantastic and the service great.  Sometimes places can be a bit twitchy around hen parties but if anything they were fantastic to us because it was a hen party.  The whole area surrounding the Artisan in the Spinningfields had a really cool atmosphere to it.  It is definitely one of those places that you wish there was in every town.  If it didn't take several hours to get there, I would go more often.