These are the coolest neighbourhoods in the UK

This feature is a sneak-peek from the June 2020 issue of Condé Nast Traveller. Get 3 issues of the magazine delivered to your door for only £1 + FREE instant access to the June issue

Across the Midlands and northern England, post-industrial cities have been busy fostering an indie attitude. With a view to more social times ahead, we earmark our next trip list with these coolest neighbourhoods in the UK.

Ancoats, Manchester

Ancoats, Manchester

A tuneful remix in the home of clubland

Sometime in the mid 1990s, techno pioneer Derrick May arrived in Ancoats to play a set at the legendary Sankeys Soap club, took a look around, and pronounced the area ‘more fucked up than Detroit’. He had a point. Manchester’s 19th-century Little Italy, alive with Neapolitan hurdy-gurdies and ice-cream carts, had faded into a red-brick ghost town of derelict mills and n’er-do-well back alleys. And despite wishful thinking by local developers, it remained this way for years.

P:Annapurna Mellor Now, however, there’s a wait of several months for a table at Mana, the beloved Manchester restaurant run by Noma-trained chef Simon Martin, whose dishes – yakitori eel glazed with yeast and blackcurrant vinegar, for instance – would have the area’s Victorian workers scratching their beards in puzzlement, but won him Manchester’s first Michelin star since 1977. On the same street are the reopened Edinburgh Castle pub (serving hasselback spuds and whipped brie in nettles), the Hip Hop Chip Shop (go figure), Blossom Street Social for wine, and a church converted into an outpost of the much-loved Hallé orchestra. Since 2000, the city’s big success story has been the adjoining Northern Quarter, the go-to spot for raw selvedge denim and bottomless brunches; Ancoats feels less hemmed-in. A walking safari in the area can lead along canal paths and over bridges, down cobbled terraces such as George Leigh Street, around to the old goods warehouse over on Ducie Street – now Cultureplex, for open-plan dining and the Native apart-hotel, the best place to stay in this area – and on to the New Islington marina, an ongoing project led by city revivalist Urban Splash with rare parkland, the Pollen sourdough bakery and innovative modular living. Steve Hanton and Katie Smith have been living in Ancoats since 2003 and run the Beehive Lofts co-working space, bringing together architects, textile designers and other creatives. ‘Cutting Room Square is the epicentre, really,’ they reckon. ‘It’s where you’ll find Rudy’s pizza, an early adopter in the area. Though the place we keep going back to again and again for its food is The Counter House. The Northern Quarter’s gone from a very diverse place to a more commercial hub. When we walk back into Ancoats it’s like a breath of fresh air.’

P: Annapurna Mellor Whitley Bay, NewcastleWhitley Bay, Newcastle

Microbrews, nose-to-tail and salty air

A decade ago not even a reckless gambler would have wagered on Whitley Bay becoming Tyneside’s hippest hangout. Spanish City, the Taj Mahal-like seafront pleasure dome celebrated by Dire Straits, was derelict, the streets a stag-party purgatory. A hint things were changing came when chef Gary Dall took over a down-at-heel Sixties shop and turned it into a sensational restaurant, The Roxburgh. Asked why he’d done it, Dall said, ‘Because there was nowhere playing The Velvet Underground and serving bone marrow’

P: Nicholas WorleyYet over the past few years the scene here has eclipsed those in Newcastle’s more feted Ouseburn and Heaton. The epicentre of the renaissance is just around the corner from the Roxburgh in Park View and its rows of pretty Edwardian artisans’ houses. Here you’ll find a cool crew checking out the latest wheels at Whitley Bay Skate Club, Carhartt-clad customers considering whether they need to buy a mandolin at Hound Dog Music, tweedie craft-ale aficionadas sampling the latest cloudy brews at Nord Bottle Shop and brunched-up Geordie pals spilling out of Kith & Kin. There’s a great bakery, Pure Knead, the permanent set-up of veteran street-food hero Papa Ganoush and genuine home-cooking at Sangeeta Chopra’s little shop/café Namaste Taste of India

Given Tynesiders’ commitment to beer and talking, it was no surprise that locals embraced the micropub trend, with chat-oriented examples including The Dog and Rabbit, the Storm Cellar and The Split Chimp. In August there’s an imaginatively staged film festival (watching Jaws in a marquee on the beach was a highlight) and Spanish City has finally been restored to its glimmering white splendour. At night you can drink French 45s in the upper floor Champagne bar and gaze at the ships’ lights twinkling on the North Sea. By Harry Pearson

 

P: Darren Mallinson
Aigburth, LiverpoolAigburth, Liverpool
The next chapter for an established enclave

So many of Liverpool’s addresses are known through song titles that it’s surprising someone hasn’t penned a few lyrics about Lark Lane by now, such is the city’s sense of its own mythology. Even more so considering the street is home to the Motor Museum studio, where Arctic Monkeys and Jake Bugg laid down early tracks. South of the centre, Lark Lane is the heart of Aigburth, with cheek-by-jowl independent outfits drawing folk from all around.

P:Ant Clausen

  • There’s always been something happening here – Keith’s Wine Bar and the Old Police Station, with its craft-led makers bazaar, are veterans – but now a new generation is raising the game. Street-food pioneer Hafla Hafla has become a fully fledged restaurant with Persian roast chicken on the menu; Polidor 68 (pictured), inspired by counter-cultural Paris, experiments with lamb-keema lasagne and pistachio tiramisu, while the brilliantly named Woo Tan Scran is a vegan Chinese chippy wrapping up ‘prawn’ toasts and jackfruit pancakes. Since Liverpool’s time as European Capital of Culture in 2008, it has been high on confidence, doing bold, imaginative things. Inner-city hits include the buzzing Ropewalks and Baltic Triangle areas with street art, club nights and cafés. Aigburth, though, has the community spirit and open spaces, with nearby districts worth exploring, too: Granby Workshop for ceramics, seasonal menus at Belzan and Otterspool Promenade, from where you can follow the river right into town.

    • At the top of Lark Lane is Sefton Park, home to the restored Palm House, white as a Victorian petticoat amid the greenery. It’s the backdrop for festivals such as the new Cream Classical, with a 50-piece orchestra spinning classics from the famous Nineties club. As the rhythms of ‘You Got the Love’ soar above the high-rises, it seems a pretty good soundtrack for this neighbourhood. By Joe Keggin

    Grace Boyd @LiverpoolMoodboard

     

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    One way of exploring the area would be to navigate the Stirchley beer mile, stopping in at low-lit Cork and Cage for sours and layered Turkish menemen, and the Wildcat Tap for a pint of Burning Soul’s Ice Cream Pale. But above all, Birmingham is increasingly defined by its food scene. In this district, that means BBQ-pork-shoulder bun cha at Ming Nham’s Eat Vietnam, and delicate sourdough pizzas at Alicia’s Micro Bakehouse. The place once known as the city of a thousand trades is still keeping busy. By James March
    Sharrow Vale, Sheffield
     Sharrow Vale, Sheffield

    Natural charm and Peak District access

    Set on and around seven hills, the South Yorkshire city has never been as attention-seeking as some of its larger rivals – the very idea of having any sort of pretension anathema to its self-deprecating character. So change has been gradual. For the past few years, most eyes have been on Kelham Island, the quarter that gave birth – hiss, steam, clank – to the town’s steel industry, where bessemers used for melting iron stand like gigantic R2-D2s near the museum, and former factories have been recast as food markets, craft breweries and restaurants. Elm for natural wines; the brilliant Jöro for pickle-y small plates. That’s the urban regeneration story, but southern Sharrow Vale is a curious example of how suburbia has become cool.

    P:Danielle Maibaum
    Its high street is now home to local outfits such as JH Mann fishmonger for oysters and a glass of wine, Starmore Boss to seek out those essential small-batch grappas and a mash-up of micropubs. There’s neon-bright Pom Kitchen café for Mumbai chai and raw salad bowls; while at new-kid-on-the-block Tonco, chef Flo Russell plates up surprising flavour combinations – sheep’s-curd ravioli in mutton broth or mussel brik with rhubarb amba.
    P:Danielle Maibaum
    • Sheffield is a rare town that blurs into wild countryside; from Sharrow Vale it’s an easy walk through Endcliffe Park and out on a 15-mile loop past old cutlery workshops to the edge of the Peak District. Unlike some cities where gentrification can be double-edged, the area’s evolution has been universally welcomed. ‘The response has been positive,’ reckons Pete McKee, whose A Month of Sundays gallery showcases his Pop Art renditions of working-class culture, ‘because the transformation has been organic. And much needed. When the Seven Hills bakery opened a few years ago, people queued outside like it was Soviet Russia.’ That Made in Sheffield mark still has real meaning behind it. By Kathryn Hall