Teacup

Teacup is one of those cute little cafes tucked in the Northern Quarter. Despite passing by it on numerous occasions I never went in. However, last night presented me with the opportunity to check this place out.
They have ample seating, a wide selection of teas, coffees and food. The cake selection is up there with some of the best in Manchester. I wanted a falafel sandwich but they ran out of falafels. Disappointed though I was, this appeared to be a good sign. I settled for a sheep’s cheese and onion chutney sandwich. We also had 3 portions of sweet potato fries, a green tea, an earl grey, a builder’s, 2 hot chocolates, a rainbow cake and a scone. All of these were delicious. We also asked if we could sample some of their pistaccio cake. It tasted fantastic. I must admit that the cakes felt a little harder than they should, but I suppose that’s because they’re exposed once you take out the first slice. On the sandwich, they were either quite generous on the cheese or not quite so generous on the apply chutney as it felt a little too dry. Again, just a minor niggle, which I am sure can be rectified by reproportioning the fillings.
They have a nice ritual with the teas. You get your tea in a red pot and you are given a timer, which is set to a certain number of minutes depending on your tea. Then once, the time is up, you pour the tea into another pot, before pouring it into your cup and savouring it. They also go through the trouble of explaining the ritual to you, which is a nice touch.
Overall we left with happy tummies and smiley faces, which is what matters. This is also largely due to the people who work there, who were friendly, polite and offered useful suggestions. I would definitely go back as I still need to try their falafel sandwich.
As with everywhere else, I sincerely hope they continue to maintain their levels of quality and service.

To be perfectly honest, Teacup has been a disappointment. I had heard so many good things about this café in the Northern Quarter, told it was the best one to pop into on numerous occasions. But I have clearly missed what everyone is raving about…
I visited in store a couple months ago now, on a Sunday afternoon. Quite busy, but certainly not busy enough to justify the 45 minute (!) wait we endured before we could solicit a random waiter and inform them that we were still waiting for our cake and smoothie (you’re literally just cutting a slice and pouring a drink! How can it take that long?!)
I picked out the red pepper drink (that mistake was clearly my own — who in their right mind orders juice with red peppers???); my friend ordered the rainbow cake.
Now, for a café well known for its cakes, and particularly their rainbow cake, I was expecting to be blown away. The. Cake. Was. Dry.
What’s even worse is that this was not a one-​off occassion. I tried the Rose Pistachio cake at their pop-​up in Manchester Museum — same issue. Dry, dry, dry. The cardinal sin in cake bakeries.
Overpriced and disappointing. Don’t waste your time here…

Very busy tea room and staff were very friendly. Order some victor sponge and order some tea. Very clean tea room and a nice experience

I have to agree with reviewer Penny: really wanted to rate this place higher but the fact is, it’s not worthy.
I’m not a local so I don’t know of anywhere better to get tea and cake. It certainly has cool people vibes — 90% off the men in there were bearded, need I say more?
Anyhoo, Teacup got off to a strong start with the food, delicious pie and mash although too light on the feta. My mate’s beans on toast looked immense, literally and metaphorically.
Hibiscus tea was refreshing and light. And they refilled us for free.
Less strong was my £5 slice of ‘lemon licious’ cake — more lemon dry-​as-​anything. Although to be fair my companion’s gluten free choc cake was gorgeous and I experienced terrible food envy.
Another negative was the fact there was no heating on 21 November. It was close to freezing outside, and we were sitting there in our coats. For the relatively pricey food I expect central heating, dammit.
And that, my friend, just cost you a star.

The atmosphere is very warm and friendly, the same goes for the staff. With any popular café or restaurant it’s bound to have loads of people and tends to be quite loud. If you’re looking to meet up with a friend this is a good place to go.
Admittedly a bit pricy in comparison to other places but with good reason considering the drinks are huge and the cakes are even bigger. The pistachio cake was quite good but I can’t understand (the western world in general, not trying to stereotype) penchant of putting a huge layer of fondant on their cake. Cakes already sweet I don’t want to get diabetes so if you’re worried about your sugar levels don’t order the cake.

Teacup is a wonderful little spot in the heart of the Northern Quarter. Whether your looking for some breakfast, a beverage or a slab of cake — this place has it all and hits the spot every time.
Today I opted for the poached eggs on sour bread and I won’t lie, I haven’t seen yolks that orange I think ever. The eggs were cooked perfectly and the sour bread toast was buttery, crispy and just wonderful.
I would also recommend the eggs royale or benedict here — you get TONS of salmon/​ham and both are thoroughly enjoyable.
Lastly, the cake, THE CAKE. You’d be mad not to grab a slice so forget about your diet and do it!

Wonderful brunch here this morning! 4 of us went and all ordered differently; I went for eggs florentine and the eggs were perfect — runny but not underdone. Very impressed! It was delicious; other friends had varying egg/​breakfast choices too but one went for the oats and it was so nice! Now of course, you have to get cake here so I took a slice to go — the coconut carrot cake. Beautiful! Only complaint was that it was the tiniest bit dry but the frosting made up for it!

One of my favourite discoveries on my holiday to the UK.
At the beginning of an unexpected free day in Manchester on a flying visit, I found an article that recommended Teacup as one of the cities attractions. When on our walk later in the day we stumbled upon it we decided to have lunch there and aren’t I glad we did!
The atmosphere and style was eclectic and open, the staff very friendly and lovely and the food and tea was some of the best we’d had in the UK.
If you are going with friends make sure you all get a different cake so you can sample as much of the wonderful range as possible!
The only thing that could make this place better is opening another location in Melbourne, Australia. We’d love to have you!

Teacup is everything you want from a café and more. Varied and interesting menu, perfect cup of coffee and friendly, well informed staff. As soon as I walked through the door I was invited to see the menu and had my order taken quickly.
I love the artwork that fills the space, some of which has been made my Mr Scruff himself. I was very tempted to make an art purchase… and eat pretty much everything on the menu as it all sounded amazing. I managed to resist, finished my latte, and asked for the bill. At £2.90 for a latte Teacup is slightly more expensive than some of the other options you have around the northern quarter, but the ambiance and quality you get here more than make up for that. I recommend this place for coffee, breakfast or a huge slabs of cake. Lovely!

Nice food and perfect tea. Friendly staff. Unfortunately they don’t serve kids meal.
Everything was good.

Came here with a friend on a rare hot day in Manchester for some lunch and a catch up!
The staff were so friendly and helpful right from the start and we bagged a sweet spot in the sun outside
We ordered sandwiches on ciabatta, my friend getting the cheesey option whilst I plumped for ham hock and cheese both coming with side salads.
Orders for food and drink were taken quickly and the waitress was so lovely!
Food came quicker than expected with drinks topped up and sorted at quick speed!
Although its not the cheapest lunch option at £6.50 a sandwich it is worth it for a treat :)

Teacup is one of the more popular places in Manchester, based on Unilocal reviews and even being nominated and winning awards; I hate to be Simon Cowell, but do they deserve it? It’s a No from me.
The store itself, is not the nicest place and is over 2 levels, with a small case of stairs separating both sides, so it is a big store on 2 seperate Manchester side-​streets. I don’t really think it is a nice store, it isn’t the brightest or most modern of stores, and is filled with posters dedicated to «Mr Scruff» and in my opinion that just makes me feel put off the place, it makes me feel like staff stretch their armpits and put their hands all over my food, unwashed, I know it doesn’t happen but if it is owned by Mr Scruff. it wouldn’t surprise me!
The menu here is poor, they is a satisfactory menu options but they do not do standard beans, what I dislike and if you do want their «special» beans it could cost £3.50, which is something else to add to Teacup’s expensive pricing.
If I remember correctly my Gingerbread Latte was £3.90 and my flourless chocolate cake was £5 and for the quality, is just daylight robbery.
My friend ordered an Americano, and she did not order this, she just ordered a simple coffee with milk, but not a latte, she doesn’t like strong coffees and that is just what it was. I didn’t like my latte too, the gingerbread flavouring was slightly overpowering and it tasted sickly and like it could be out of date, as I couldn’t finish it as it left me feeling quite bad, like they was something wrong with it.
Service here is pretty slow too, even for a cake what is ready made and right in front of me, and I was waiting for a while just for my latte, and then for my cake.
I did enjoy my flourless chocolate cake last time, and I did find the presentation to be very good but the cake this time was the opposite, although they was slight flaws in my previous visit, it wasn’t awful but today it was — It was far too chocolatey for my liking, and they didn’t need to add this to make it nice, without flour as I know some people who make great flourless chocolate cake, and it isn’t like this, it isn’t too chocolaty!
The clotted cream and raspberry are nice additions but I would prefer something in the cake rather than this as it just make an already sickly cake, more sickly.
The staff here are not great too, they seem more about the sale and thinking they are all-​knowing, rather than handing me a dietary book (which I’m sure they have as I’ve seen it before) or explaining certain dishes in detail, rather than trying to sell the more expensive things (The £5 chocolate cake) and passing it out to be «the best», «the nicest», «the only gluten free» thing on the menu which is worse having, and in all honesty if that is correct, they is nothing gluten free on the menu worth having.
Due to issues with the store design, layout, food, coffee and pricing, I feel this place does not deserve its’ success and really needs to improve and is the perfect example of a one star establishment.

I’d heard wonderful things about this place so of course was excited to finally visited. I found the selection of cakes on display amazing and very quickly ordered a slice. My friends ordered a green tea and a smoothie of sorts.
The cake portion was wicked — it was huge and could easily be shared with another one or two people. I was quite disappointed that it was rather stale — probably from being on display for the last few days, particularly in the hot weather.
I mentioned this to the staff who apologised and wiped it off the bill. I didn’t pay for the cake and the waitress was very helpful, so overall I would visit again but perhaps be sure to select a cake that still appeared quite fresh on the display.
The servers were very kind, the cake was aesthetically pleasing and I look forward to giving it another go and seeing if they truly do taste as good as they look!

Been here on numerous occasions because they have outdoor seating on the pavement, which is really nice on a sunny day. Although there are only a few so you sort of have to keep your eye out until someone moves.
Nice little café in the Northern Quarter with plenty of tables inside. I’ve only eaten here once– had an incredible asparagus salad with poached egg from the specials. Usually just come here for a cup of tea, which is their speciality. They have all sorts of flavours of tea– I can’t drink caffeine anymore so I had the rosebud tea which is really nice– comes with a fancy egg timer so you know when it’s brewed– although I’m not exactly patient!
If you order a slice of cake they are HUGE mammoth size slices so order between 2 of you (or 3). They also serve wine, should you wish to have an alcoholic refreshment. All in all a very cute café and a lunchtime staple in the NQ.

It’s been a long time since I last visited Teacup, they had totally different crockery and menus in fact, but brunch with a friend led us to try Teacup again.
Luckily we arrived just before the rush and had no wait time to be seated, next to the wall of adorable — and sometimes confusing — children’s drawings. As it was 10:30 they were now offering the lunch menu as well as the breakfast menu. We opted for the breakfast menu with Eggs Royale and Eggs Florentine for me. Very delicious, the sour dough toast was perfectly toasted, the poached eggs had a runny centre without being to jelly like on the outside. Creamy rich hollandaise, nutmeg spiced wilted spinach and a smattering of crushed capers. A great filling brunch with good quality ingredients and a decent price.
Naturally from our vantage point we could see that the cake selection at Teacup had significantly improved too. A hefty slice of Victoria sponge with vanilla cream, fresh raspberries and a perfect sphere of clotted cream was consumed by both of us with great gusto. The crushed freeze dried raspberries on top with the icing sugar was an effective and flavourful twist.
There’s plenty of great coffee and tea choices, and we sampled a variety of green tea concoctions and a very good cup of coffee to round things off. In short, it was a lovely brunch and we’ll probably be back next Sunday!

Very cool place, quirky and fun. Can get a little too squashy at times as there seem to be a very large number of tables for the small space, but I cant knock that when demand is there.
Much like many other tea shops in manchester I cant rate it 5* regardless of anything else due to the unbalanced prices, especially the tea which is über expensive.

I really want to slap on a 4 – 5 star rating on this place but I just can’t.
Meeting my frightened friend off the ‘armoured train as he called it; I thought I would settle him into Manchester by taking him for a good breakfast.
I have wanted to try Teacup for awhile, as its always busy and the décor just looked homely.
Chancing it on a Sunday morning, this place was already packed. As soon as we got to the counter, a massive queue appeared out of thin air. Good timing.
The lovely lady at the podium greeted us warmly and stated that there would be a 5 min wait. We accepted this challenge
Five minutes soon passed by, when we were led to a table and introduced to our waitress who reported what the soup of the day was.
Browsing through the menu, which consisted of posh beans on toast, eggs, sandwichs, pies and cakes my initil thoughts were it was quite pricey. But I thought hey if the quality is good I don’t mind paying it.
I selected the duck eggs poached on top of avocado, wild mushrooms on toast. To wash it down I went for the blueberry milkshake. It was quite nice how she flipped the menus over which became the placemats… quite a nifty idea actually.
The drinks came first… bearing in mind I love a good sweet milkshake, but for £4.50 this tasted like a «be healthy smoothie» …it was pleasant, but not what I expected. My friend went for the hot choc, which after slurping, it was more like a luke warm choc. tasty but cold!
Sitting in hope, I waited for the food to blow my socks off… when mine arrived I was disappointed considering that for £9.50 all I was given was one egg to share between two pieces of dry toast. The mushrooms looked interesting with their wildness, but some had not been washed throughly which left me with some grittiness… Not pleasant. The bread was so difficult to cut through that I must have looked even less so lady like trying to saw it in pieces… in the end I abandoned all cutlery altogether.
My friend enjoyed his scrambled eggs, but for £6 I think that’s pricey for 2 pieces big bread with egg on it.
Overall I think this place is over rated, over priced pretentious shizzle. I wouldn’t mind coming here for tea and cake (because the cake looked divine) but I wouldn’t queue for it again.
I have had a similar but tastier and cheaper breakfast at a chain called Bills in Watford which. I think I will try the one in Manchester…

If you’re in the Northern Quarter and you’re looking for somewhere for tea and cake, look no further than Teacup.
It’s easy to find, on Thomas St, in the heart of the NQ and you can’t miss either the ‘Cake or No Cake’ sign outside or the huge queue of people waiting to get inside.
Teacup Kitchen is always busy — so make sure you time it right when you visit.
I’ve been here loads of times, when i’ve been lucky enough to get a table, for tea, cake, hot chocolate, coffee and it’s always been great. The cake is to die for here — especially the flourless chocolate cake… WOW!
I haven’t eaten from their main menu yet — but it’s high up on my list to try!

Maybe it’s because it’s January and everyone has spent all their money on Christmas and is waiting for pay day, but wandering around the Northern Quarter today looking for somewhere to have lunch we were amazed at how empty everywhere was. Then we had the thought to try Teacup because whenever we’ve wandered past before people have been queueing to get in.
Well, there was no queue today but it was pretty much the only place we saw which was full. I’d not appreciated before how big the place is — it goes back a long way, and is decorated in a quirky way with old German school materials hanging from the wall out back.
Staff were friendly and helpful, and we went with sandwiches (hummus and falafel for Sparky, smoked tomato and chicken for me). Sparky then had a traditional tea whilst I branched out with a black lychee which was smooth and sweet and really tasted of lychees (it’s a bug bear of mine when teas smell nice but taste awful; this definitely did not fall into that category!). It also seems nowadays that everywhere doing tea brings you the egg timers for brewing, but it was nice to actually get a recommendation about how long to leave our teas for — and a recommendation which was actually spot on.
TL;DR: Good food, great tea, good service — but be prepared for it to be busy.

We stumbled across this place after checking a few Unilocal reviews for somewhere in the Northern Quarter that did a good cake selection. As soon as I heard it was owned by Mr Scruff and dubbed as ‘cake, tea and music’, I was sold.
The cake did not disappoint! Much like Home Sweet Home, the cakes are ridiculously huge and range from the traditional to the multi-​coloured crazy (although not quite as insane as the Home Sweet Home varieties which can be a bit too much to handle).
The selection was fairly extensive, and between us we settled on carrot and coconut, pistachio, and an amazing heart shaped scone.
All of them were delicious (yup, I helped finish them all!), but I have to say my carrot cake topped the table.
We were fortunate enough to be sitting right in front of the kitchen as well, and although we only popped in for a mid-​afternoon snack, the food coming out the kitchen and the care shown by the kitchen staff would definitely encourage me to return for something more substantial.
Not much of a tea drinker, I didn’t care much for their selection, but was assured it was impressive. Instead we went for some smoothies and milkshakes (just what you need to warm up in November) which were pretty decent, but nothing special.
The staff were really friendly, and the place generally had an enjoyable, relaxed atmosphere. I did come away thinking the 3^rd item (the music) hadn’t left any lasting memories, so deduced it can’t have been that good. A little disappointing from the establishment owned by Mr Scruff, but a minor annoyance more than made up for by a most delicious slice of cake.

Tolles Café mit einem netten Team, gemütlicher Atmosphäre, einer großen Teekarte und sehr gutem Essen!