Al Faisal Tandoori

Al Faisal is another of the Northern Quarter's curry cafés. Personally, I really appreciate the rich character of all of these cafés and I feel more comfortable supporting a local, ethnic, independent business over a chain.

As a vegetarian, I enjoyed Al Faisal's lunchtime rice, channa, spinach & potato and chapati for around £5. Everything was tasty. However, the rice had small amounts of food colour in it, and I prefer to avoid artificial additives. And the chapati was fairly thick and leathery though still perfectly wholesome if thoroughly chewed! I personally prefer proper dairy ghee as a healthier cooking oil but staff at Al Faisal confirmed that they use vegetable oil, so I will keep looking (and eating!) in the meantime.

All Al Faisal staff are attentive and courteous, ensuring the place is kept neat, clean and peaceful, whilst ensuring a fast turnaround on orders. Al Faisal is definitely a good choice for a hot and nourishing no-frills lunch or early evening meal.

Really really good grilled meats as you can see from my 'mixed grill' lunch ...
I have previously written about Al Faisal but this is a fitting way to sing its praises ... I prefer the Yadgar for curry but the grill award goes to 'Al Faisal' if you have a charcoal carbon crush. :-)

This rather unassuming, minuscule restaurant in the Northern Quarter has been around since the early 90s, watching other curry houses in the area come and go. The reason Al Faisal is still here is quite simply because it is great quality at a great price.

There are a number of similar restaurants in the area (although not as many as before) offering lunch specials but what I love about this one is they've stuck to what they know - offering a very small, unchanged menu of 10 or 12 dishes. Rather than spreading themselves to thinly, they've mastered the few dishes on offer here.

The classics are Chick Pea Curry, Lamb Kahari, Keema, and Chicken Tikka, with rice and freshly cooked Naans and Rotis. For the veggies amongst us there's great choices too like Aloo Gobi. Great lunch for around £5-6

Dropped in for a kebab on the way home from the bar. Ordered large chicken tikka wrap. There was 4 pieces of pre cooked chicken in it. For £7 ! Totally disappointed.

Tucked away in the mish-mash of vintage shops, boutiques and galleries which make up the Northern Quarter are a few little curry houses, one of which is Al Faisal. Similar to This & That, Al Faisal offers no-nonsense dining for those who just want good food and nothing else. Don't let the canteen style seating and shabby interior put you off, Al Faisal has fantastic food and service for a more than reasonable price.

For a quick lunch or a take-away snack try the keema naan which is soft, delicious and stuffed to the brim. The lamb and chicken curries are both good, although not miles away from the other curry houses in the area so in that sense nothing spectacular. There's plenty on offer for veggies and the prices are more than reasonable so Al Faisal ticks all the boxes in that respect.

The staff are friendly and the atmosphere is upbeat, however the place is almost always half empty which seems odd for somewhere which boasts 'The Best Curry in Manchester' across it's windows. Perfect for a stress-free meal, Al Faisal is definitely worth a try.

The looks might scare some people away, but it really is one of the best curries in manchester (certainly the best i had) and the owners are also very nice guys.

Forget about curry mile, this is the place to visit. Yes, it looks a little dodgy, but the food is really superb.

Wish i worked nearby, so i could lunch there more often.

Absolutely disgusting. My food looked like slop you'd hesitate to feed to a dog, and it was swimming in a pool of grease. Anyone who thinks this restaurant is "Number 1" needs to have his head examined.

Going to Al Faisal feels like a pilgrimage. It shouldn't be undertaken lightly. It deserves special attention and much appreciation. It is really something out of the ordinary. Something to behold.


A decade ago I used to meet friends there and grab an almost impossibly cheap and staggeringly tasty curry before heading off to find back street pubs selling beer from forgotten breweries, daring each other to venture into the next ever more tumbled-down tavern that we came across as we charted the post-industrial hinterland between Market Street, Ancoats and Angel Meadow. It was a voyage upon a beery sea of discovery and we were bouyed by the possibility of adventure and a sense of real danger. Yet keeping us steady was the balast of Al Faisal's redoubtable cuisine.


I made my way there the other day for the first time in a while. It was a great spring day, sunny and mild. A trailer for a summer to remember? I cut across from where the barrows used to be on Church Street, alongside the Conran apartments which previously housed the BT building where I once worked a different lifetime ago and found myself on Back Turner Street, intruding upon a fashion shoot against the backdrop of a short flight of stairs leading down from a door in the alleyway, amongst the bins. I watched as the photographer crouched and stood, thurst forward and recoiled as if she herself was the subject being zoomed in and out. On Kelvin Street I admired the newly refurbished former weavers' cottages, the oldest residential properties in the Northern Quarter, dating back to 1780. They are bookended by the most incredible yet subtle obelisks of modernism, tucked away in the anonymity of these back streets, just as many grand and architecturally ambitious buildings were in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.


I turned the corner and found myself before the counter in Al Faisals once again. Half and half - chick peas and chicken with rice. A tough choice - the dahl always looks good, as does the lamb, the breads. ah! I ordered, I was told rather firmly to sit at the vacant table closest to the counter so the guy didn't have to cross the world's tiniest restaurant and I opened the paper. Within seconds my food had been served up from the canteen behind the counter and was in front of me on the table. I poured some water and alternated between reading about a rather glorious defeat of some footballing rivals, smiling, gazing through the window at the characterful frontages of Goodall's Gallery and the Thomas Street Post Office, and rampantly racing through the delicious food. I tried, several times, to eat it slowly, to savour each mouthful, but it is possibly, the most more-ish food in the world.


I paid my £5 for chic pea curry, chicken curry, rice and a diet coke, grabbed my paper and let the backstreets of the Northern Quarter absorb me once again.

Worth a journey. Great food, great atmosphere, friendly service. Our usual is Lamb Curry, a couple orders of chickpeas, a couple orders of rice, several skewers of chicken and maybe some bread, all shared around the table and replenished with additional order as required. Then off to wander Manchester, a perfect Saturday lunch.