Featured image: Aigerim Zhumabay

Life comes at you fast once you leave uni. One of the biggest decisions you’ll make post-degree is where to set up home. If you plan on staying in Manchester, there’s so much more to the city’s suburbs than Chorlton or the familiar sights around the Oxford Road/Wilmslow Road corridor.

Greater Manchester is awash with lively suburbs, and if you’re willing to venture further, some rural outposts with easy access to the city.

Levenshulme (Manchester)
Low-key foodie heaven

Four miles south-east of the city centre, Levenshulme has undergone a transformation over the past decade. Although the creeping tide of gentrification makes for a stark split between its streets – the middle-class fantasy land around Central Avenue is just over Stockport Road from dicey Matthews Lane – one thing everyone in ‘Levy’ can get behind is its food scene.

As well as being home to Cibus, the Good Food Guide’s Best Local Restaurant in the North West, Levenshulme also has legitimate claims on having the city’s tastiest shawarma (Levenshulme Bakery), takeaway curry (Khan’s), Lebanese food (Sips & Dips), rice and three (Nehari House), bakery (Long Bois), biryani (Lahori Chai Shai), and for a touch of the unexpected, a paratha shop in a car wash (Paratha Hut).

If that wasn’t enough, it also boasts the legendary 192 bus, which runs from Piccadilly to the far reaches of Stockport. It’s a route so renowned that it inspired a concept album, produced by local singer Dave Hulston back in 2013.

Ramsbottom (Bury)
Cosy countryside vibes

With steam trains from the heritage East Lancashire Railway chugging behind one goal, the River Irwell babbling behind the main stand, a cherry tree by the tea hut, and wooded hillsides enclosing the rest of the ground, it’s not often you can say a non-league football club is the best place to immerse yourself in a neighbourhood.

That’s exactly what Ramsbottom United’s bucolic stadium offers, though: a microcosm of this former mill town on the outer tendrils of Greater Manchester.

‘Rammy’ is in prime walking territory, with Holcombe Hill and the Peel Monument – named after  local lad and founder of the modern police, Robert Peel – dominating the horizon, and hikes along the Irwell Valley stretching south towards Bury and north into Lancashire. It’s 12 miles away as the crow flies, but the X41 bus brings you to Manchester in 45 minutes.

Monton (Salford)
West Didsbury on tour

Between its gang turf wars and Ewan MacColl’s ‘Dirty Old Town’, with its bittersweet references to gas works, canals and factory walls, Salford has always had a rough press. Sure, the inner-city quadrant jutting from the west bank of the Irwell has had its issues, but the up-and-coming village, fondly nicknamed ‘Monton Carlo’ by locals, promises vibrancy and soul to new explorers.

Salford is perhaps Greater Manchester’s most underrated borough. Chat Moss, a vital habitat for rare peatland species, takes up almost a third of the city’s land, and snuggles up close to Monton.

With its mesh of swanky bars, vintage shops and brunchable eateries, Monton is Salford’s equivalent of West Didsbury. This opulence doesn’t come cheap, of course, with more affordable options south of the East Lancashire Road in neighbouring Eccles.

Heaton Chapel (Stockport)
Grown-up suburb on the edge of ‘the new Berlin’

One stop along the train line from Levenshulme, the lifeblood of Heaton Chapel coalesces around the junction of School Lane and Manchester Road. Predominantly a family area, but with plenty of Victorian villas converted into flats, you’re away from much of the city’s hustle and bustle.Here, you’ll find an array of award winners, including the venerable Littlewoods Butchers and craft beer den Heaton Hops – a semi-regular haunt of Paul Heaton and Stone Roses bassist Mani – as well backing onto the sprawling Highfield Country Park.

However, Heaton Chapel is well placed for nightlife. It is next to Heaton Moor and its stunning art deco Savoy Cinema, the bars and food of Levenshulme, and within walking distance of ‘the new Berlin’, aka, Stockport town centre.

Denton (Tameside)
Booming on the quiet

Of all the places on this list, Denton is the one experiencing the greatest levels of flux. Five miles east of the city centre, a sudden post-Covid proliferation of bars and restaurants has helped to blunt the rougher edges around its main Crown Point crossroads.

Those restaurants are at the forefront of Denton’s renaissance. What began with the long-lost Salus, a trailblazer selling a peculiar combination of dirty burgers and fruit juices, has blossomed into a scene where tapas and pad Thai rub shoulders with lobster ravioli, a special at Ornella’s Kitchen, and afternoon tea at Vault Two.