What makes something worth queuing for? Just one of the many thoughts that popped into my head as I sat looking out onto the Arndale car park as it basked in the winter sun earlier this week.
Perched on a wooden stool and gazing out of the large windows partially blocked by a collection of house plants, I was paying a visit to the Northern Quarter outpost of Federal, the Antipodean-inspired coffee shop which has just been named one of the top coffee shops in the UK and one of the world’s most popular.
Like many coffee shops in the city centre it also serves an assortment of baked goods, brunch and boozy cocktails, and is well known for its queues stretching down the street. On weekends, you can expect to see punters form an orderly queue outside in return for a serving of their hit French toast, smashed avocado and eggs and banana bread for the road.
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Federal, which has three locations in the city centre and a coffee cart near Altrincham Market topped the leaderboard in a study undertaken by bookmakers Betway. They measured the social media popularity of over 300 independent coffee shops, comparing the number of TikTok views, Instagram hashtags and Google search volume to determine which independent cafés were the most popular globally.
The day before, a Guardian deep-dive was published exploring the current state of coffee shop culture. Its argument was that all 21st century coffee shops look and feel the same due to ‘algorithmic globalisation’. The latte art, unlimited WIFI and tiled walls, it argued, are not unique to your ‘hidden gem’ coffee shop, but are in fact ubiquitous.
Ironically, it’s the kind of article you’ll spot people scrolling through on a Sunday morning or during a lunch break in one of these homogeneous venues. That’s not to say the piece is frivolous, it definitely gave me food for thought.
A large part of my job is to recommend places to eat and drink here in a region where we are, for want of a better phrase, spoiled for choice. I can reel off at least twenty spots where you can grab a coffee, indulge in a pastry, or tuck into something hearty, but increasingly, in a world where we spend hours scrolling through social media platforms, it’s becoming difficult to discern where we should in fact spend our hard-earned cash, when many do in fact look and feel the same.
How do we separate the wheat from the chaff when the way we source recommendations – most likely through Instagram and TikTok – reward certain hashtags, aesthetics and uniformity? This is where my earlier thought about queues comes back into focus.
We readily click on articles that report queues out the door, whether it is a well-known spot or an actual hidden gem but is a queue or prominent placement on the Instagram grid a good way to decide on quality? I know lots of places that regularly have queues out the door in Manchester, some are very good, others are simply not worth the hype.
But when it comes to coffee shops, yes, they may share aesthetic similarities, but scratch beneath the surface and you’ll quickly be able to tell who is the real deal. Federal’s first café opened in the Northern Quarter in 2014 and quickly became one of those ‘must-visit’ spots – and whether you love or loathe a queue, it remains a popular stop-off.
Gladly, what it says it offers it actually delivers on. Naysayers will report back or take to the comments section to complain that other Northern Quarter venues are better – but that’s ok, it’s subjective and it’s always good to have a choice.
We’re all entitled to our opinions and when coffee shops that double up as brunch spots all offer fairly similar options, some customers will prefer the way one place sautés the mushrooms, or offers various add-ons, while another will argue that their favourite always takes care to remember their coffee order – and that’s the point really, these places may be similar but it’s the individual touches that set each one apart.
Federal for me is always consistent. I’ve never had bad coffee there and, as someone who spends a lot of time working from coffee shops, that is high praise. On this occasion, there’s no queues when I arrive at lunchtime, but I quickly form my own when I find no tables available.
After a slight false start, which sees a customer that arrived after me seated first, I’m swiftly taken to my spot by the large windows. Federal’s French toast with macerated berries, white chocolate, mascarpone, and a shed load of other sweet accompaniments, is one its most popular dishes and the one many queue for on a weekend, but today it’s all about the Turkish eggs.
The simple but delicious savoury breakfast option hits the spot. Piercing the perfectly poached eggs, the yolk trickles onto the creamy, whipped garlicky yoghurt beneath it, a bit like paint being added to an already vibrant palette of glossy hot chilli butter and earthy za’atar. A round of sourdough toast completes the dish, adding crunch, extra texture and a perfect vehicle to scoop up the yoghurt and egg.
It’s a straightforward dish done well. Accompanied by a rather pretty flat white – there’s nothing wrong with a nice bit of latte art – and a gorgeous slab of chocolate and raspberry brownie to finish, I was floating up to brunch heaven. There’s a slick operation behind the scenes to bring this all together, the staff are friendly and welcoming and the way the light illuminates the space really does make this place feel special – it’s easy to see why so many people like it.
Around me, friends catch-up over plump looking scrambled eggs, families are stealing a bite of each other’s corn fritters and halloumi and shrooms, and staff chatter away behind the counter as they keep customers watered and fed. I’m sure hundreds of familiar scenes are playing out in similar cafes across Greater Manchester at the exact same time, but rather than bemoan this, we should probably celebrate it more.
Here in Manchester we really are pretty fortunate to still have a thriving breakfast and brunch scene, in spite of all the challenges hospitality continues to face. You may think there’s a cookie-cutter approach going on if you only look up places to go on social media, but here on the ground, no two cafes really are the same.
Look around and you’ll spot that each has their own quirks, whether it be serving tap water from milk bottles, arranging flowers in old medicine containers, or local street art adorning the walls. Brunch and coffee isn’t about reinventing the wheel, but it’s about riffs on classics and using great ingredients, and ultimately creating a space where people want to come back again and again – and I think that’s something Federal has nailed on the head.
