Why Federal perfectly sums up Manchester’s cafe culture
If you’re looking for iconic food in Manchester, you need to go no further than Federal’s brunch and lunch menu.
The cafe has been operating here for 10 years now, and so we sat down with Claudio, the owner, to discuss the business.
The cafe has been operating here for 10 years now, and so we sat down with Claudio, the owner, to discuss the business.
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00:00If we're talking about food places that are massively important to Manchester's culture,
00:04the place behind me, Federal, is just that.
00:06This is one of three of their locations,
00:08and I want to speak to the owner about what makes it such a success and why Manchester.
00:12Federal is a cafe in Manchester that's loosely based on similar spaces in Australia and New Zealand.
00:18So I wanted to sit down and speak to owner Claudio Ribeiro
00:21to understand what it is about Manchester that makes it such a desirable place to set up shop
00:25and why Australian-themed.
00:28I just thought that the way they did those things in Australia and New Zealand
00:33would be a bit different from the UK.
00:35The quality of the coffee, the quality of the service.
00:37That's what makes us Australian, or Aussie.
00:40I think that the quality of the service you get when you come in,
00:43the friendly staff, and then the quality of the food,
00:46the consistency of it, and then the speciality coffee.
00:50It isn't just the Tim Tams and the Vegemite that make this Australian.
00:53As Claudio says, it's the service.
00:55And who he hires to work there is of massive importance.
00:58And that's the key for Federal and the key for anything we do.
01:01We have to make sure that the staff is as friendly as they can be.
01:05They need to like to work with people.
01:07So our approach has to be quite genuine and not just forced.
01:10They go out together, they have friendships.
01:12We have couples that came out of Federal.
01:14We have couples that have babies now that came out of meeting the Federal.
01:18So we recruit people that are very like-minded and they get along with each other.
01:23Now this video is about food, and it's something that Federal do brilliantly.
01:27But their menu hasn't really changed much, and Claudio says that consistency is key.
01:31Actually, the menu stayed pretty much the same since we opened.
01:34We have a really good chef that helped us to create the menu.
01:37He just arrived from Australia at the time in 2014,
01:40so he kind of was fresh and full of ideas on how to put the menu together.
01:45And then we've been lucky enough to work with loads and loads of good chefs
01:48that have tweaked the menu to what it is today.
01:50But the menu kind of stayed the same pretty much the last 10 years, actually.
01:55Two dishes that people order the most, which is the French toast,
01:58which is the most popular, and the other one is halloumi shrimps.
02:01We bake our own cakes, so we bake our own cakes in-house.
02:05So all the cakes that you see here come from our store on the other side of town.
02:11So why Manchester?
02:12Well, according to Claudio, there's a couple of reasons.
02:15But chief amongst them is the community that they're bringing out,
02:17particularly across businesses in the northern quarter.
02:21I have really good relationships with people that run coffee places like I do.
02:28I get along really well with the guys from DKB.
02:31I get along with the guys that run sports down in Deansgate,
02:34which is a major coffee down there.
02:37I do think that we make sure that we are exchanging information
02:42about what's happening in town.
02:43And what we should really be doing is taking people away from the big chains.
02:47Manchester is full of amazing places.
02:49And I think that's what people come to live in Manchester,
02:52but they also want to be here and just stay.
02:54And the city just grows with everything that happens.
02:56For Manchester World, from Federal, I'm Theo Hewson-Betts.