Indian Vegetarian, Reset for the Beer Hall
Bundobust is one of the cleverest restaurant concepts to come out of Northern England in the last decade. The conceit: Indian vegetarian street food, the Gujarati and South Indian small plates that have always existed in British-Indian cooking but rarely received serious billing, paired with a craft-beer programme that takes itself entirely seriously.
The Manchester branch on Piccadilly is the largest of the three current locations and the most fully-realised. The room is a converted basement-style beer hall with long communal tables and a counter where you can watch the kitchen at work. The crowd is mixed, students, post-work groups, families, vegetarian curious carnivores, and the energy is consistently among the best in the city.
What to Order
Vada pav, the Mumbai potato burger, treated with care. Bhel puri, the puffed-rice salad with tamarind and date chutneys. Cheese-and-chilli naan that has become the dish Bundobust regulars order without thinking. The dosa programme is genuinely good, paper-thin, crisply-griddled, served with the right chutneys. Most diners over-order. That is correct.
The Beer Programme
The beer list is the surprise. Bundobust has long-standing relationships with Northern English craft breweries, Cloudwater, Magic Rock, North Brewing, and the rotating tap list tends to be one of the most interesting in Manchester. The pairings work because Indian food and hop-forward beers were always going to work; Bundobust simply formalised the relationship.
Best Occasion: Team Dinner
Bundobust is one of Manchester's most natural team-dinner rooms. The communal tables absorb groups of any size; the sharing format means a team can graze through 15 plates rather than negotiating individual orders; the beer programme provides a natural conversation engine. The price point is honest; the dietary requirements are largely solved by the menu being vegetarian by default. It is the team dinner that happens to also be a beer night.