Cafe at the Rylands

Café Rylands offers a really great lunchtime or coffee option on Deansgate where most of the other options are faceless chains.
The menu is fairly simple but covers most bases for a casual lunch or snack with a variety of freshly made sandwiches, salads and soup, as well as crumpets, toast and a variety of cakes. I fancied a salad and was pleased to discover that not only do they offer a ‘chef’s salad of the day’ but you can also have any of the sandwiches salad-​ified! I opted for the roasted med veg and guacamole which was both delicious and huge and a real bargain at £4.95, although I had green eyes when my friend’s afternoon tea for one appeared– £7.50 got her a large pot of tea, smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches (you can choose your filling), a scone with jam and clotted cream, a chunk of chocolate brownie and a big wedge of carrot cake– amazing!
As Café Rylands is owned by Manchester Uni it excels in sourcing ingredients that are local and as seasonal as possible as well as fairtrade, something that is definitely good to know.

Fresh, local ethical located in the superb John Rylands Library on Deansgate, which houses one of the world’s finest collections of rare books and manuscripts. Every superb building needs a reasonable fancy café to tea and cake break in and the Café is here to serve.
Their menu is quite strange but quirky for a none quirky looking café. That’s because half of the things on it encompass something about Manchester. Pick up a Manchester sausage on toast with local chutny, a roast beef and Lancashire blue on toasted bloomer or some Manchester tarts or eccles cakes for afters. Local knickerbocker glories hot vimtoes, you’ve got your Manchester hat firmly on. But if you’re feeling particularly Mancunian today go for «The northern plate” — A sharing plate for two showcasing the café’s regional foods: Lancashire & goats cheese, black pudding, Manchester sausage, Grizedale pork pie, locally cured meats, all served with Lizzie’s chutney and relish and crusty bread. What a feast. You’ve now got Manchester running through your veins.
The coffee is not only Fairtrade but Rainforest Alliance certified and organic by the way. Café at the Rylands is a right treat for the older generation. I have no idea what a Manchester sausage entails. Superb little concept yet I’m not intrigued enough to try as of yet.

Personally I find this café a bit average. Its got good food, average sustenance, mediocre nourishment, typical cuisine, ordinary fodder, intermediate eats, mainstream provisions, standard subsistence and usual grub.
Wow what a lot of things this café offers! Oh right, they’re all the same. Just like all the chairs and tables in this café. Just like its décor.
Having said that, I would like to indicate that there are some really good cheeses, so I’d recommend them.
I cant really say anything bad about it, its okay, but nothing special. Also, Deansgate Library is full of medieval manuscripts, so that’s reason enough to pay it a visit anyway!

THE café at the magnificent John Rylands Library is a place where the upright and bookish refresh themselves. The menu offers Deli like foods and ingredients are sourced from the best of the region’s producers and ethically traded. There are lots of ‘local’ choices including black and white pudding salad and potted shrimps, and this culminates in the The Northern Plate, for two, which comes with a glass of wine or a hot drink. There are also very good cheeses, pies and tarts, locally baked bread, regional preserves and pickles, fresh salads with regional seafood! The childrens menu is basic, but offers something for most picky eaters.