Akbars - Ipinda

Northern England is home to some of the best South Asian food anywhere in the world, including the Indian subcontinent itself. Manchester is home to the iconic Curry Mile. In these competitive environs, Akbar's holds its own with its gigantic naans and its flavorful curries. The offal-based offerings, such as maghaz (sheep's brain) masala and chicken liver tikka, are my personal favorites. The maghaz has a creamy, buttery texture and loads of flavor. The perfectly chewy naan is a great accompaniment to both dishes. A steaming cup of the sweet and salty Kashmiri chai is a perfect way to finish a meal on a cold Manchester winter evening (I usually find myself in Northern England around Christmastime).

This is a fantastic place and I wish I'd known about it earlier! However, there are a couple of catches one needs to know about! For example, bookings in small numbers are not allowed, so if your party is less than 10 you would have to wait in the lounge. Moreover, you wouldn't be put in the queue for tables until all the people from your party have arrived! Once they have, you are given a device which will start flashing once your table is ready. For us it took just about 30 minutes (on a Thursday evening), so make sure you have no other plans this evening or come earlier. The place was full, we load to squeeze behind other guests backs shows how popular the place is. Our waiter was very friendly and made us feel welcome immediately. Despite the venue being packed, food arrived quickly, and it was just delicious couldn't find any faults! For those who feel adventurous, there are chef's challenges with spicy food (I heard you get s free dessert if you finish it however , can't vouch for this). I have tried a tiny piece of this challenge from my friends plate, and almost cried from the amount of hot spices! Despite the wait, very enjoyable experience, and prices are more than friendly, which is very unusual for the city centre.

I love Indian food in the UK. I was most excited to try this place for the gigantic naan. The menu is robust with a lot more dish offerings than the average Indian restaurant in the USA. Food comes very quickly. We ordered a bottle of wine and had to wait for glasses. That was a little weird. Food otherwise delicious. Space huge. Decor beautiful! The bar area in the front is also very big so it's a great place to hang if you have a wait. I'd definitely return!

YES. just trust me on this, yes. Such a great lively atmosphere, friendly/well-attentive staff, and DELICIOUS food. I will let the pictures do the talking!

TL;DR Nice curry and good service, but I've had better. Ever since moving to Manchester I've wanted to try Akbar's everyone seems to say it's the best curry in town and the enormous queues would seem to back that up. Meeting up with a friend for dinner he suggested Akbar's so I finally got chance to give it a go. Upon arrival they'll give you an indication of how long you'll have to wait to be seated (45 minutes in our case) and give you a pager which buzzes and lights up when your table's ready. The waiting area is large, so even when it's busy there's space to spread out, but seating is in short supply. This was also the first place where we felt the place fell short when we bought drinks at the bar there were no beers on tap and the fridge had just been restocked so the beers we bought weren't all that cold. On top of that, they didn't have enough change in the till so we had a long wait. Finally we got to our table and our server was incredibly helpful, polite and courteous. You can't really fault the service. We placed our orders and then... we waited. It took a long time for our starters to come and they were... OK. Nothing wrong with them really, just not out of this world. I had samosas, Mark had pakoras and Tom had chicken tikka. It was a similar story with the main course a long wait and then our curries came which were nice, but nothing out of this world. The naan bread was great though absolutely enormous and just one was more than enough for three of us. The other thing we can't fault the place on is value. At the end of our meal we were a bit surprised by the bill and thought we'd been undercharged, but it was right. So if you come here and are prepared to queue, you'll get good service and a good meal at a decent price. But is it the best curry house in Manchester? I'm not so sure.