Kosmonaut

I really wanted to love this bar but sadly, the cocktails didn’t win me over. We were meeting here for pre-​dinner drinks and I was really impressed with the place — it’s got a bit of a warehouse vibe to it.
We stood at the bar and had a look over the menus — I eventually opted for an Air Force One (gin, violet, cherry and Prosecco). The guy making the drink too AGES to make this — to the point it was getting a little bit awkward. Anyway, I grabbed my drink and took a seat by the window which is probably the best seats in the house.
Sadly, for all that time he’d spent on my drink it certainly wasn’t a winner. I really don’t think he knew how to make it so it just tasted wrong — really lemony and I actually just ditched drinking it and got a glass of wine instead.
I’d come back here if I was in Manchester again but I’d stick to the wine menu next time.

Huge fan of the atmosphere here, first night drinking since having my appendix taken the f-​out!
I realise I don’t come here quite often enough, it’s last orders for me and vodka it is :) good feelings to end the night on, full burger filled stomach and vodka making me wobble!
More about the place, it’s trendy and unique as far as bars go, only the second Russian themed bar I’ve been to and easily the best. Prices are about what you’d expect for a northern quarter bar, not cheap but that’s the NQ for ya.
The place isn’t too crammed so good for hanging out and the music wasn’t too loud so chatting was not a total impossibility with my heavy-​metal-​battered ears.
Next time you’re in the NQ, pop in for a drink, it’s a good place to end the night!

Kosmonaut is a cool hangout firmly established in the Northern Quarter with food and drinks, excellent coffee, super fast WIFI, ever-​changing art exhibitions and a fierce ping pong league. There is a cool rustic décor and friendly staff with a great selection of beers and cocktails.
The place is large which is good for groups.

I’m going to keep it short; Kosmonaut is expensive for drinks and the service has been pretty lacking each time for me — slow and disinterested bar staff.
However the beer selection is good and ABC brewer is the bar manager so there’s always a nice selection of their beers on.

Really nice cosy bar with tapas — rustic décor and friendly staff with a great selection of beers and cocktails.
Large space for big groups too!

Dropped by for lunch with a friend along with a few beers. Tried a green tea beer I think? Was pretty good. I was finding it hard to choose from the menu because everything sounded so good but the bartender suggested the gin soaked salmon– boy was it good!!! Seriously you have to try it! Also had loads of sweet potato fries, yum.
The venue itself is on Tarriff street in the NQ; it’s pretty dark with wooden booths, we sat in the front near the bar which was pretty quiet on a weekday but there were loads of people out the back round the corner. Really enjoyed it and would go back to try something else on the menu.

I was visiting Manchester and upon looking for ideas on places to check out this place stood out to me. I liked the name & I liked their website and they sounded like a pretty cool bar set within the Northern Quarter of Manchester.
Took us a wee while to find it but thanks to good old Google Maps we eventually got there. I must admit from the name (and website design) I had expected this place to have a more ‘space’ theme which it didn’t. At all. So that was disappointing… I wasn’t expecting a full-​on theme bar but a few hints to retro space travel would’ve been cool.
However, it was a Friday evening and the place was filling up but luckily we managed to grab a table opposite the bar ~ this was great for me as I could peruse the very extensive beer/​drinks menu. I was impressed with the amount of different & craft beers on draft — of which only 2 I had heard of (Asahi & Sam Adams). Bonus. I started off with a half of their very own lager (with it’s quirky name, not to be confused with the cereal; Special K) which was very nice & refreshing indeed. I then moved onto try a few of the guest beers most of which were really good, bar the wheat beer (I’m not a fan of wheat beers) one that I didn’t realise was a wheat beer until it was too late, doh. They were all quite reasonably priced (around £4 a pint) too.
They also do loads of yummy sounding cocktails here & had I not been in the mood for beer (err…sometimes that happens!) I would’ve tried a few of them although I did notice they were quite pricey (around £7) so I was more than happy to stick to the lovely beers. They also do a Happy Hour here which is a rare thing these days (in Glasgow anyway) which is Mon-​Fri 4−7pm ~ that’s my kinda Happy Hour; it includes a Friday AND it is until 7pm! Brilliant. Special K lager is £2.80 a pint & Sam Adams is £3.80 a pint. Also bottles of wine are £11 (and Prosecco — £15) should you be that way inclined.
I really liked the relaxed surroundings, dim/​mood lighting & sheer vastness/​openess of this place ~ you don’t feel all rammed in to one wee room as there are several rooms in here (next door looked more like a dining area and I hear downstairs they have Ping-​Pong tables! Yas)
The bar staff were super nice & cool as. I honestly could’ve stayed here all night but after a while the DJ (who was set up beside some cool, old barbers chairs) got a bit too loud (as the night went on) and we were struggling to hear each other across the table so we decided to leave. This place seems to have quite a mix of clientele too ~ hipsters (LOTS of beards!), business folk, cool couples & others all mingle in here, which I really liked.
The food sounded good & I REALLY approve of their massive beer/​drinks menu/​s. If I’m ever back in Manchester I would like to visit this place again & try me some more delicious beers! *slurp*

I don’t really know what to say about Kosmonaut, it’s a place I go to regularly when around the City Centre, but I don’t really love it.
When Kosmonaut first opened I really liked the feel of the place — going for the New York bar look with exposed piping and traffic lights, the bar does a good selection of drinks, including what looks to be a decent cocktail list.
The music is generally pretty good for my tastes, though it depends on the night — at the weekend in particular it’s for the younger crowd, and really feels like it turns from a bar into a makeshift nightclub.
Kosmonaut has grown quite a bit since it first opened, with the back room & downstairs extending the space considerably — there’s even enough room in the bar downstairs for table tennis, which I’m not a fan of here in the Northern Quarter — it’s clichéd and reinforces hipster stereotypes, or maybe I’m just a miserable old turd (I’m definitely a miserable old turd).
I’ll keep going to Kosmonaut as it’s a decent enough place and doesn’t offend anyone, but I think I prefer it on a Sunday or during the week and I’ll try and leave it to the kids on a Friday & Saturday night

Kosmonaut is a great «Where should we go to get a drink???» bar. The three or four times I have been here it has been relatively quiet and relaxed but with enough buzz to make you know it is a popular place to come for a drink. Last night I came with three male companions to have a hit on the table tennis table. The table is in the basement level of the bar and we had the room to ourselves as we smashed plastic balls at each other. The table can’t be reserved but it also doesn’t cost anything to use. Clearly there’s a strong sense of trust at Kosmonaut.
The beer range is good with typical Northern Quarter bar prices. Their happy hour beers aren’t great but they’re drinkable. The bar itself is spacious and has lots of benches, tables and lounges to sit at. You can even sit in two barber’s chairs if you’re lucky.

I want to like Kosmonaut. Ideally I want to love Kosmonaut, then its sheer proximity to my office will come in handy. Yet, unfortunately, I don’t love it. Most of the 3 stars come from one time when I visited for Sunday lunch. That was truly excellent — you get a mini pie with your roast. Cute, and delicious. The weekday menu looks equally good, with some imaginative dishes.
But as a bar? It’s just not my fave, at all. First off, it’s too loud. Yes, I sound like your granny. My main issue with the noise during the early evening (the hours where you want to chat while you drink your beer) is that it’s just that much too loud that you can’t have a group conversation, but not quite loud enough to make you want to get up and dance.
The beer here is okay — though expensive, even during happy hour. The staff on the whole are alright, though some are quite rude, and one I encountered was downright hostile.
Kosmonaut must have its fans, as it’s usually pretty busy. Unfortunately I am not one of them (except on Sundays).

Oh, Kosmonaut. I love you. But not quite enough to move in together.
I mean, I wouldn’t want to anyway — I already live across the road. Which makes my not especially frequent trips to your bare-​bricked interior (steady, now…) all the more puzzling.
Let’s start with the positives — the food, for the price, is pretty good (for the NQ, anyway). Burgers are juicy and the chips are incredibly moreish.
The beer selection is really quite impressive, too. At least when it comes to bottles. A particular favourite is the Hacker-​Pschorr Weisse. But at around a fiver, it’s not cheap. Their Special K (house) lager isn’t great either, even if it is cheap (ish).
And ultimately, Kosmonaut, that’s why I don’t visit more often. It’s just you’re a tad too expensive to drink in all night.
I’m sorry. I really do want to visit you more often. Please don’t be mad?

Decent cocktail bar in Northern Quarter with a good atmosphere, cool décor and good drinks. Not too pricey compared to what I’d expect to pay in NQ for a cocktail (between £7−8) with some cocktails under a fiver and some £6.50. My favourite cocktail sampled lately has been the Tegroni — delightful!
I would love it if they made the downstairs bit which seems a bit more chilled into a dance floor where we could have a bit of a cheeky dance! There is nowhere good for people my age to dance in Manchester!!!

This is the kinda cool Bar you wanna love in the Northern Qtr, which is setting trends for the new style of what places should look like these days, Its just like you’re in a trendy bar in NYC with the industrial lighting and the don’t walk sign which i loveeee, I do love this bar from the really comfy deep sofas to the booth seating and barber shop chairs, you can also sit around the bar, all the staff are really friendly but the only thing i have a complaint with is the price of drinks, i know drink prices are creeping up on us more and more every day but £9 for two pints of Samuel Adams is a bit steep! but you’re in the NQ so you’re gonna have to pay it, We do love the NQ and the style of it all, The Kosmonaut is trendy and i LOVE IT!

I’ve been to Kosmonaut a few times now, my friends really seem to love it but I am yet to be enchanted by the place. I love that it is ‘away’ from the madness of the Northern Quarter tucked away in between Whiskey Jar and Teacup. That said, last night (Wednesday evening at 6.30pm) it was 2 deep at the bar and we had to quickly jump into some sofas when another group left else there would have been no where to sit in the main bar area. This isn’t a major issue though and it is a great testament to the place that so many people choose to visit after work for a drink.
The space is airy and light with comfy sofas and booths to sit at. The bar is sectioned into 2 main areas with a further area downstairs where they tend to hold events. I’ve been to a few cocktail competitions here but it does feel a little dark and it can be difficult to photograph events properly.
There is a good range of music playing but I found it really loud for afterwork drinks when I just wanted to sit and have a gossip with my friends. There were 4 of us on the sofas and I struggled to hear the person sat next to me never mind the people on the sofa opposite.
Still on dry January I opted for several bottles of rose lemonade which were expensive at £3 each. There is an excellent selection of beers here though and they are always changing depending on what interesting new stock they have, they were changing this whilst we were there.
I would have given this a star less if it didn’t have such an impressive back bar. Their gin collection is incredible with a fairly rare bottle of Mahon gin from Spain which, is beautiful. I can pretty much guarantee there will be something there you haven’t tried.

I really do enjoy how so many Manchester city centre bars are not horrifically rammed even on a Friday or Saturday night. We thought there was a queue initially but it turned out to be some under 18s unsuccessfully negotiating with the bouncer. I did not get ID’ed, despite my youthful good looks.
Inside, it was a little difficult to access a cocktail menu when approaching the bar and as all that was on the wall were beer and wine prices for a horrible moment I thought there were no cocktails. But in fact, there are many delicious-​sounding cocktails with exciting ingredients. Also the prices are very reasonable, some of the cocktails are less than £5! Imagine. I opted for a Corridor Sour (featuring rhubarb liquour and butterscotch) which was pink and yummy although possibly the butterscotch takes too much away from the rhubarb’s sharpness? But anyway I liked it and the thick cut glass tumbler it was served in.
Despite it’s name there is no space/​Soviet theme discernible, at least upstairs. The décor is basically Brooklyn-​esque, with a few lame paintings. Not to say I didn’t like the space, there’s plenty of room and seating. There’s also lots of people to look at.
The DJ was playing classic hip hop and R&B which my friend, who grew up as the only white boy in his Yorkshire village into that kind of jam, was very happy about!
All toilets in the ladies loos were blocked, which was causing something of an impromptu support group to form. Can’t imagine that ended well (the blocked toilets, not the support group. Girl washroom solidarity always ends well).

2 stars for the décor. Extremely expensive. Looks great. Too noisy to talk to mates. Met no one new. Keep getting dragged there, but it’s got no better. Shall not return again. Never got to try the ping-​pong in the basement. Might be better early evening during the week or afternoon on Saturday.

I do like Kosmonaut. Even though I’ve yet to try the food (menu looks nice though). For me, it’s a great ‘all round’ bar. It’s got a very good selection of beers (including an elderberry lager), a decent stock of wines & also spirits and cocktails. Basically you can’t go wrong.
The booths are cosy, running along the side wall. And the barber’s chairs are always an attraction (though dangerous in the hands of drunken people!)
A sleek bar with lots of wooden furnishings, they’ve definitely hit upon the NY vibe they were going for. It’s like a less flashy/​neon, more conceptually successful black dog.
The cocktails are average price & there’s a few (though not as many as you would get in specialist place) as are the rest of the drink. The music is pretty chilled on a week day night.
The (presumed) popularity of Kosmonaut is staggering, I don’t think I’ve know a business to extend so quickly! The added rooms really open the space up & allow three separate bars, which can only be a good thing.
If your party has different tastes in alcohol & you want somewhere decent, go here.
(I very, very nearly had my birthday drinks here)

I stumbled to Kosmonaut while searching for a highly rated coffee house on TripAdvisor. It seemed like the place I was looking for… wood floors, spacious, friendly and a bit rustic. Immediately I noticed the fine whisky selection and lost my coffee crave. It was quiet. It was Noon, but it was time for a refreshing drink and a bite to eat.
The bartender was eager to please and created a custom cocktail just for me; a twist on a Bronx with a bit of fizz — it was delicious and had me craving for more than the extra tall glass it was poured into. I chased it down with a wonderful Pastrami on Rye and a small bucket of crunchy, but tender fries that were cooked and seasoned to perfection — not the least bit greasy.
Kosmonaut, you had me at hello. I can only imagine how fun it must be to visit at night when it really opens up ;)

When I first stepped foot in Kosmonaut I breathed a long sigh of relief — at last a new NQ bar that is larger than a shoebox! Looking at the cocktail menu my pupils dilated and I sat myself at the bar and got comfortable.
Split across several floors, Kosmonaut is a refreshing addition to the otherwise overcrowded Northern Quarter Bar scene. Lazy sofas meander around the groundfloor bar, offering cosy seating and plenty of spots to enjoy a bite to eat. Head downstairs for another cocktail bar-​cum-​dancefloor with DJs playing grindy music into the wee hours.
Offering a sizeable cocktail menu and an interesting selection of beers & cider, the drinks offering is high calibre and wide ranging. The barstaff here really know their stuff, mixing cocktails with flare but without pretence. I’m not much of a drinker, and the barkeep created a lovely virgin mojito for me without hesitation. I’m yet to try the food here, but I’ve heard good things so am looking forward to seeing how their food menu matches up to their cocktail offer.

I am itching to give Kosmonaut a 5 star review but I will restrain and just go with a 4 star for now because I didn’t try their food yet!
I met a friend from University after ages, he is doing his Phd now and doesn’t venture much beyond Oxford road (students eh?) so he gave me a challenge of taking him somewhere cool (because I keep bragging about how I know all these awesome bars in NQ). I had crossed Kosmonaut a few times before thinking to myself this looks like a nice place but never landed up trying it out. So i thought of taking him there and a good excuse for me to fulfill my desire ;)
The moment you enter, you know it is a bar in Northern Quarter. The whole feel is very hipster with wooden flooring and an old world charm. The couches looked comfy and there was a seating area at the bar too. They have a good selection of pints and apparently the best cocktails (according to Unilocaler Jamie B). I guess that area needed a nice bar because the only bars that were there on that part of Northern Quarter was Lammars, Lolas and Port Street beer house!
Verdict: Yay one more addition to the hipster bars of Northern Quarter!