Cabana Manchester Restaurant Review

Manchester’s food scene just keeps getting better and better. At a time where more districts in the city are popping up with cool and delicious eateries and bars, what was known as The Triangle (in exchange square) has recently had a massive makeover to become The Corn Exchange; a whole building of restaurants and bars right in the centre of town. One of those is Cabana, a Brazilian Barbecue Restaurant and a place I’d never tried before. So, to share my experience, here is my Cabana Manchester Restaurant Review.

My guest and I were welcomed inside Cabana and immediately felt at home – the staff were super friendly, the restaurant was bright and the atmosphere was relaxed. We started with drinks, and Cabana’s cocktail menu was almost as colourful as their decor! I always try and sample new drinks, or cocktails from the bar’s own menu, so I picked the Red Tail Parot (the red drink above, duh!) which was a prosecco based cocktail with Cachaça, lime juice, strawberry and passionfruit purées. It was delicious and a reasonable price for a cocktail at £7.95. My guest chose a Passionfruit Caipririhna – a Brazillian drink recommended by our waiter which was sharp and fruity. Both cocktails were a good start, and many of Cabana’s cocktails are on a 2 for 1 offer.

To help wash our cocktails down, we chose a ‘while you wait’ starter to share – these are nibbles smaller than your standard starter which we are told are always on the grill ready to settle rumbly tummies. We went for the Chargrilled Pitta which comes served with chimichurri dip. This doesn’t look like much but certainly started to fill us both up, and the pitta was delicious. At £3.95 it’s a bargain and there’s no harm trying this if you can’t wait for your main (or are greedy guts like us)!

Cabana is a Brazillian Barbecue restaurant, which means it’s pretty much based on a BBQ style, but instead of other similiar concept Brazillian Barbecue restaurants, you are given and served your own piece of BBQ meat rather than having pieces shaved off a skewer. We saw these regularly been prepared on the busy open kitchen grill on big long skewers and served onto a hanging kebab. My guest chose one of these – the 8oz Cabana Steak – so we could test it for ourselves. I am told that it was spicy (as advised) and absolutely delicious, cooked as requested. I was surprised that when it came over the waiter removed it from the stick for us and served it onto a plate; I can certainly see why this would help practicality-wise, but just seemed a shame when it looked so great presented as a hanging kebab. I just love a bit of theatre, so think it would be a cool idea to leave it on there.

Although as a BBQ restaurant it was heavily meat centred, I was happy to see there were still a number of vegetarian options. I went for the Halloumi and Portobello Mushroom burger, which was presented beautifully with a Brazillian flag and tasted just as good as it looked! As well as marinated halloumi portobello mushroom (of course!) the burger also had on it rio beans, matchsticks, tomato,lettuce & chimicgurri in a brioche bun. I chose to have this with fries and slaw which costs £11.95. The portion of sides was massive and the chips were so great. Like, really great, even though I couldn’t finish them all!

Both of our main meals were absolutely delicious, very tasty and left us with very full tummies. In fact, we were asked if we would like any more drinks or a dessert and we had to politely decline; we were just so satisfied with our mains! The waiters were chatty and friendly throughout the meal, regularly checking we were being looked after and whether we needed anything else. The atmosphere of the restaurant was chilled and perfect for group meals or celebrations. I’d love to bring my family back here to eat altogether some time, it’s the type of place I could imagine us spending a few hours.

I hope my Cabana Manchester Restaurant Review has been helpful to those other Manchester foodies who have also not tried Brazillian Barbecue before. I had a great experience and there was nothing I would have changed about the food or dining atmosphere. It is reasonably priced and a really convenient location for shopping in Manchester city centre, so I could definitely see myself popping back again on another Saturday afternoon.