At the weekend we had a great family day out at Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse. We were invited along to see what it has to offer for families. We were given lunch and tickets to The art of the brick exhibition in exchange for this review. Find more great family days out North West here.
The Great Northern Warehouse is a former railway goods exchange warehouse turned into a leisure complex, just 5 minutes walk from Deansgate train station and tram stops. There are numerous entertainment venues, restaurants and bars.
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The first thing we spotted when we arrived at the Great Northern Square was the fantastic outdoor play area for kids. I imagine the sandpit is very popular in warmer months. Despite the cold, my girls enjoyed balancing on the tree stumps and playing in the little house which had a few toys (cash register, play food etc) and books inside.
We chose to have lunch at one of the restaurants and go to The art of the brick exhibition. Other entertainment options for families are the cinema or ten pin bowling. There are also free to use ping pong tables upstairs that looked great fun for all ages. The restaurants all look amazing and I was thrilled to see they are all independent restaurants or small chains.
Evuna Deansgate
We had lunch at Evuna Spanish restaurant, Tapas bar and wine importer. As soon as we walked in I could see we were going to enjoy an authentic Spanish meal. The restaurant is cosy and has a real Spanish vibe with exposed brick, dark wood and lots of wine bottles. The staff were all very friendly and only too happy to help too.
We started with some bread and olives whilst we read the menus. Both were very tasty. It’s worth noting that there is no children’s menu in their Deansgate branch. However, there is a lot of tapas on the menu and their small size make them ideal for children. They have a great deal on at lunchtimes, 3 tapas for £11.95 so we choose our girls 3 items from this menu to share between them.
For the kids, we picked them Spanish omelette, chicken skewers and meatballs in tomato sauce. We also ordered some garlic bread to share. It’s worth mentioning that despite not having a children’s menu, children are very welcome. They have high chairs and great little activity packs with crayons that our kids enjoyed.
For ourselves, we decided to share 6 tapas. We chose 3 from the lunchtime set menu and 3 from the main menu. The 3 from the set menu were chorizo in Spanish wine, chicken in creamy paprika sauce and Patatas bravas. From the main menu, we chose Serrano ham croquetas, stuffed peppers and prawns in chilli and garlic.
We really enjoyed all these tapas dishes. The portion sizes are good and all the food is so full of flavour. My favourites were the prawns, stuffed peppers and the Serrano ham croquettes but all the dishes were delicious.
We finished with dessert. The girls shared a bowl of ice cream, I had Chocolate cake with ice cream and my husband the almond cake with ice cream. Both the cakes were delicious and really moist. The girls love their ice cream but it was definitely too big for either of them alone.
We left Evuna feeling very full of delicious food and dreaming of Spanish holidays. What more can you ask from a restaurant?
Evuna Deansgate is 1 of 4 restaurants owned by the team. They also have branches in the Northern Quarter, Altrincham and Knutsford. The Knutsford and Altrincham branches have children’s menus. Knutsford also has a kid’s corner with books and toys which I know my girls would love.
Find out more about Evuna here.
The art of the brick exhibition
We are a family of Lego lovers so we were very excited to see this exhibition by Nathan Sawaya, a New York artist who creates works of art out of Lego. The art of the brick is a global touring exhibition that CNN voted as a top 10 “must-see exhibition”.
There are over 90 pieces on display which are displayed in various sections. The exhibition uses over one million Lego bricks.
Some of the pieces are life-size and some even bigger. A few of the human form ones are really very poignant like My boy and everlasting pictured below. Never did I expect to find Lego so thought-provoking.
The next section is a series of recreations of works of art like the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo and The kiss. Despite the pixelated effect that creating 2d artwork in Lego creates, these pictures of famous paintings are still so clearly recognisable.
In pieces is another series of pieces. This time, these pieces are a collaboration with photographer Dean West. I particularly loved the red dress and also clouds and umbrella. Isn’t this dress simply beautiful?
The final room holds a giant T-rex made 80,000 bricks. My kids loved this one. They were in awe of it!
There are also a couple of opportunities to watch short documentaries about the artist and how he creates these amazing pieces. I love that next to each sculpture you can find out how many pieces of lego it is made of. I loved asking my 6-year-old to guess how many pieces.
Right at the very end before the gift shop exit, are 3 large pits of lego for kids to play with. There are 3 different sizes, Lego, Duplo and large oversized foam Lego bricks. There are also a few consoles with Lego video games for kids to play. My kids loved the Lego pits and the beauty of them was that myself and my husband could take it in turns to go back into the exhibition and look at the pieces at more of an adult pace. It goes without saying that the Lego sculptures shouldn’t be touched but for a 3-year-old this is frustrating so she went through the exhibit at a great pace. It was as if she knew there was a play area at the end to get to!
We loved this exhibition and I for one will never look at Lego again in the same way. Nathan Sawaya is a very talented artist and I love that he has made adults and children alike look at Lego and see the infinite possibilities of the simple brick.
Ticket prices are adults £14.50, children £9.50, family tickets £42 (2 adults and 2 children), concessions £12. Find out the opening times and book your tickets here.
I’m sure this won’t be our last visit to the Great Northern Warehouse either. With so many great restaurants and the amazing play area out front, I’ll be keeping my eye on their future family-friendly events. Find out more about the Great Northern Quarter here.
Where to next?
Have you thought about visiting Manchester’s Legoland discovery centre?
Another great rainy day activity in Manchester is Inflatanation.
Or how about heading the Chill factore.
Another local family day out is Etherow country park walks.
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Disclosure – We were given lunch at Evuna and tickets to The art of the brick exhibition in exchange for this review. All photos, words and opinions are my own.
It looks like a great day out! The tapas looks great, really tasty and the perfect amount for lunch. We love Lego too, so the brick exhibition looks fantastic.
It was a fantastic day all round
Wow! Looks like you had a great time. Have to say that Garlic bread looks Ace!! Great food all round!
The food was delicious
The Art of The Brick Exhibition looks super cool. Looks like you had a fab day out.
The exhibition is amazing
Wow that dinosaur! Looks incredible 🙂 It sounds like you had an amazing time and I also like the look of that tapas 🙂
The tapas was delicious and the dinosaur incredible
Oh this looks like a great place for families. I love the fantastic outdoor play area for kids.
The play area is great. Simple too really
I have been to Deansgate several times but didn’t know this place existed! It looks like a great place to visit with young children. I’ll let my sister know about it as my niece is 4.
It’s a great entertainment centre for families and adults too. Lots of bars and restaurants
We are massive Lego fans too. My boys would love to see that exhibition.
Oh my, I am hungry now looking at that food. The LEGO figures look amazing
I know! it was so good!