Ego Death
Ian Jones, Food and Drink Editor
Ego Death isn’t your average bar. For starters, you get to it through the store cupboard of a fast food restaurant, stepping over mop buckets and cardboard boxes. It’s not the kind of place you just stumble into, it’s the kind of place you need to know about it in advance and hunt it out.
The bar boffins among you will recognise this set-up. It’s straight out of the PDT playbook, aka Please Don’t Tell, the revered New York City cocktail bar, hidden behind a phone booth in an East Village hot dog joint.
It ties into the whole speakeasy-style hideaway vibe that we’re seeing around Manchester at the moment in places like Louis and Climat. All good harmless fun, and it goes some way to keeping the clientele feeling like they’re part of something special and secret. And it works – Saturday night brings a crowd of date-night couples and groups of dressed-up mates, all up for a great night.
The bar team are a close-knit group of mates who greet everyone with a big welcoming smile and a friendly ear. Looking for the right drink to fit your very specific cravings that day? These guys will find it, make it, and blow you away with it.
You only find this kind of one-on-one warmth and connection in these intimate, independent bars and this, more than anything, is what will keep you going back again and again. Think Cheers, only with better shoes and an amazing soundtrack.
But it’s the drinks menu that truly lifts Ego Death above the rest of the city’s bars. Whatever the cocktail equivalent of the Smithsonian is, this menu belongs in it.
My personal favourite, the Bourbon Banana Colada, is an elegant remaster of the Piña Colada, with more depth, more flavour and a cute little banana lid, toasted for you there and then. But you could choose a drink at random, and it’ll wow you in one way or another. This is one of Manchester’s most masterful cocktail menus – complex, witty and always delicious.
This sums Ego Death up – the smallest details matter, and every ingredient is there for a reason. This goes into every element of the bar – the music, the layout, the uniform, and so on. If you care about nightlife at all, you’ll find it a genuine treat to be around people who understand how to turn a good bar into a great bar.
The name? It’s all about leaving your ego at the door and enjoying the kind of going-out atmosphere that has made Manchester such a legendary party destination over the decades. A couple of months in and Ego Death is well on its way to becoming one of the city’s very best bars.
