Moose Coffee

York Street, Manchester

Brunch: ‘a meal combining breakfast and lunch, usually eaten in the late morning’.

It’s become rather trendy in recent years, thanks to an increase in the number of American breakfast diners. Personally, I don’t really understand the hype surrounding this mid-morning feast. Firstly, I fail to understand why you’d choose to combine two meals into one, but then I am an incredibly greedy person who eats by the clock. Secondly, as an early riser, waiting for up to five hours before eating isn’t ideal and leaves your body clock out of sync for the rest of the day.

It seems the majority of the population don’t agree me with me, given the popularity of Moose Coffee, which has established a legacy in Manchester City Centre. Founded in 2006, Moose Coffee aimed to tap into New York City, where a hearty brunch is the highlight of the culinary day. Think towering pancake stacks, waffles and all day breakfasts.

So trendy is Moose Coffee that there’s a never-ending waiting list. Annoyingly, they don’t take bookings, it’s strictly walk-ins only. This annoys me, as many of us simply don’t have time in our busy lives to wait around for as long as an hour (and trust me, at this place, that’s good going) for a table. You need to set aside a timeslot for eating and then you can plan your day around it. Alas, it seems the majority of Mancunions believe it’s worth the wait, as there were queues out onto the pavement. We had to leave our name and number, returning 45 minutes later.

Once seated, the service was rather slow, which was frustrating given that we’d already had a lengthy wait. You’d think they’d be after a quick turnaround to keep the conveyer belt moving.

We’d been perusing the menu whilst wandering around town, so we could get ordered straight away. I couldn’t decide whether to opt for savoury or sweet. Normally I’d just have both, but breakfast doesn’t exactly lend itself well to the main-and-dessert format.

As I’ve seen plenty of pictures of their pancake stacks, the scales swung towards the sweet. I had the caramelised apple and salted caramel pancakes. There were three thick, round, deliciously spongy, fluffy pancakes stacked one on top of the other, but the topping was a little sparse. A few pieces of caramelised apple were laid on the top and there was a mere drizzle of salted caramel. Plenty for the top pancake, but the two underneath were left plain.

Caramelised Apple and Salted Caramel Pancakes

All the pancake stacks are served with a jug of maple syrup and butter. Maple syrup I can understand – it’s the traditional American way – but the butter seemed rather bizarre. Why would you want to put butter on sweet pancakes? Out of curiosity, I melted a little bit into a dry patch on one of the plain pancakes, and I have to confess that it did actually work.

I was grateful for the maple syrup, as it allowed me to cover the bottom two pancakes, adding a little flavour. However, extra salted caramel would have been preferable. If there had been enough caramel in the first place, the maple syrup wouldn’t have been necessary.

I caught a glimpse of the chocolate and peanut butter stack across the room, and they looked much more satisfying, covered with generous helpings of chocolate spread.

The pancakes themselves, however, were perfect. Totally unlike any others I’ve tasted and incomparable to the feeble attempt you toss up in the kitchen on Shrove Tuesday. At £8.00, it was perfectly reasonable given the size of the portion; it was certainly a meal in its own right.

I washed it down with two cups of tea, the second of which didn’t arrive until I’d almost finished eating, and that was after I’d chased it up. The slow service coupled with the lengthy wait means I wouldn’t rush back, but if I was to return, I’d opt for something savoury next time. The Caboose in particular caught my eye – cheese pancakes topped with fried eggs and bacon – along with the Liberty Moose – scrambled eggs mixed with pesto and topped with cured ham.

Moose Coffee is worth trying once, but you’ll need the patience.  

Full menu at: https://www.moosecoffee.co/.