Any time spent in Glossop is complemented by the excellent variety of the town’s food and drink offer.
Here, we mention just a few of the wonderful artisan businesses that call this place home. We want to hear from you too about who we’ve missed and why you love them!
Let’s start at the beginning. Breakfast and coffee. Specialist coffee house, Twig has sites at both Glossop Train Station and Station Road in Hadfield, and as well as fantastic caffeinated beverages, smoothies and milkshakes, they also do a range of sandwiches and delicious cakes. The same can be said of A’bout Thyme, which also serves larger breakfasts and brunches from their site on the High Street. Dukes cafe has a similar offer, inside a music themed cafe diner environment.
There are vegan and vegetarian brunch offers across town, but the fantastic Pepino Deli on Norfolk Square, Thrive cafe and Shepley's Cafe over in Old Glossop all specialise in vegan and vegetarian cuisine exclusively. Glossop is renowned for trailblazing veganism and sustainable practices in a semi rural setting, and you can read more about that tradition in our dedicated article here.
One of Glossop’s most celebrated artisan businesses is the team behind Two Hares Deli and Hyssop. Both located on the High Street, the latter is a restaurant which offers a small plates menu and was added to the Michelin Guide for 2022. After suffering a fire later in the year, the restaurant will open again in early 2023. Their sister site, Two Hares, is a deli and brunch/ restaurant spot in a cavernous warren tucked away in plain sight in the centre of town. They also open into the evening and have a high quality bar offering, serving craft ales and classic cocktails in a unique setting.
A similarly high standard is set at Distant Hills Brewery, back in Old Glossop, which strives to provide modern takes on traditional beers utilising natural ingredients and sustainable processes such as focusing on the re-use of by-products from its brewing process. They aim to minimise their impact on the local environment and are a perfect bookend to any yomp in the Peaks. On top of this, their kitchen offering is superb! Head Chef Dan Turner worked at both Bacchanalia and Australasia in Manchester, and then cut his mustard within the fine dining scene of Austria. If you want a souvenir , Distant Hills also offers gifts and take outs of its delicious beer range.
There are some brilliant pubs in Old Glossop, with The Bulls Head, The Queens Arms and The Wheatsheaf all within stumbling distance of each other - and each as charming and characterful as the last.
Glossop has a wonderful variety of restaurants and cuisines, with a mixture of huge heart; some long established businesses and some up and coming gems. Napoli is a favourite with locals and as the name suggests, does traditional trattoria style Italian food in a family friendly setting on Norfolk Square. A few doors down on the High Street, you have Ayubowan, whose mission is to provide a taste of Sri Lanka in the UK, using their team of chefs’ traditional family recipes and high quality ingredients to provide the explosion of flavour that is Sri Lankan food. They also have sites in Birmingham, Sheffield and… Kottawa in Sri Lanka!
Whilst we’re talking about spicy food, Ruchi is a great curry house for the obligatory regular curry night that we love so much in the UK. Their dishes are of Northern Indian and Bangladeshi origin and are prepared in the restaurant exactly as the staff would in their own homes. And on a similarly spicy tangent, we have The Beehive, a Glossop institution and a pub that manages to very successfully blend gorgeous home cooked Thai food with a specialist whiskey bar in a typical (and very charming) old rural pub setting at the top of Whitfield. Over in Hadfield, Kota Lapo serves up Indonesian street food for the adventurous palate.
New kids in town Taqueria are a small and intimate restaurant with an authentic but contemporary Mexican street food tapas style. Their restaurant may be small, but their food packs huge flavour and massive heart into each dish. The restaurant has received rave reviews recently from the likes of food bloggers Mcr Finest and really is worth checking out. They are situated above The Mixologist in Glossop, which they also own. The Mixologist is open until late, serving brilliant cocktails in a lively atmosphere. What's not to love!?
Many of our pubs serve fantastic food too, but The Packhorse located in nearby Hayfield is truly exceptional. It was recently placed at Number 32 in the Top 50 Gastropubs 2022, and is a Michelin Guide-recommended pub located within the Peak District National Park. Its young owners, Emma and Luke Payne (also head chef), are putting the area on the map for culinary excellence. Their food changes with the seasons, offering a unique snapshot of the British food calendar using the best local suppliers wherever possible. They get their meat from the award-winning, Glossop-based Mettricks Butchers, which has been voted the UK’s best butcher on numerous occasions.
In Broadbottom, The Harewood Arms is a quality, family run and friendly, craft beer and cask ale pub, which houses Greenmill Brewery, founded by Mat, Phil and Yvonne Wild, who aim to create quality ales using traditional ingredients. Tigallae is an affiliated pizza kiosk, open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 5pm to 9pm at The Harewood Arms. You can enjoy your pizza in the pub or collect from the kiosk to take home. To give their Roman-style, wood-fired pizzas their unique taste and texture, they use a mix of flours; wheat flour, rice flour, soya flour and sourdough. This dough is then proved for 72 hours and topped with the best quality ingredients: fior di latte mozzarella from Naples, vegetables grilled fresh by them and meats they cure themselves.
For pizza in Glossop centre, La Corrente is a good choice. Situated at the Howard Town Mill complex, they hand stretch their own sourdough pizzas which are fired in their custom built pizza oven. They also do a takeaway service. For take-out pizza to enjoy at home, the long-established Pizza Plus on the High Street is much loved and cooks up a variety of deep pan and traditional pizzas with a huge range of toppings. If it’s fish and chips you’re after, you can’t go wrong with Oceans in Glossop or Billy’s Plaice in Hadfield.
Into the evening, Glossop really comes alive with artisan bars and celebrated pubs dotted throughout the town. Here’s a crawl through some highlights that you can do yourself! Starting next to the Train Station, The Star Inn is one of the town’s premiere real ale/ cask destinations. In this cosy, conversation orientated, traditional environment, guest beers are sourced mainly from local micro breweries all available on handpump. They are CAMRA accredited and frequented by enthusiasts from far and wide. Over the road, opposite the train station, Harvey Leonards is a wildly popular wine and craft beer bar that puts the emphasis on tipples of the highest quality, with a huge selection of wines and beers sourced locally and from all over the world. Their food menu is of equal quality, with deli platters, cheese boards and pizzas rolling out the kitchen throughout the evening.
Norfolk Square marks the centre of the town and is a one-minute walk away from the station area. On the square, The Partington Theatre Bar is also open to those who don’t have a ticket for a performance. Its stunning interior, with its large, dramatic windows is a lovely setting for a drink. Over the road, Cask and Kitchen is a small bar serving quality contemporary pub food and its sister site Square West sits opposite. There you’ll find craft beer cans and cocktails aplenty in a lively open plan setting.
Down the road, The Oakwood is always busy and a Glossop staple. Famous people who have drank there over the years include LS Lowry and Ludwig Wittgenstein! It's now owned by Robinson’s brewery and has a function room and live music space, as well as a killer cocktail list.
Glossop is known for its performance and musical heritage, largely because of The Globe. They’ve had famous acts through their doors and the interior seems like it has never changed (in a very good way). They were one of the first vegan pubs in the country and are proudly 100% plant-based to this day. Their gigs can go on late into the evening, and if you’re looking for a venue to dance into the wee hours, The Crystal Ballroom has you covered. They are above Harvey Leonard’s, at the tallest point in Glossop. It hosts Mancunian favourites like Clint Boon and has exceptional club nights like Dance Local which attracts top DJ talent from Manchester and beyond.
And there’s more coming soon to Glossop! With a host of international standard F&B businesses looking to set up in the area, it is an exciting time for the town. Soon the new look Town Hall will attract new offers from talented locals and established names to compliment and support the amazing businesses that currently reside here. Glossop is the perfect place to start an artisan business, with a thriving foodie culture and an appetite for even more variety. We are establishing ourselves as a foodie destination at the gateway to the Dark Peak. Come and see and of course, give us your own recommendations!
Looking for a fun day and night in Glossop? Check out The Glossop Hop ale trail here!
