Liverpool Weekend (Day Two) – Baltic Market

The next stop on our little tour of Liverpool was the Baltic Market, the first street market in the city and it’s still all rather on-trend and exciting. It’s on the large site which was formerly Cains Brewery and it’s open on Thursdays to Sundays. I very much like these slightly upmarket (well, as opposed to those sites with the Holy Trinity of McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC) food courts, they make it easy to take a group of people to a venue and then there’s still a choice of cuisine. Often there’s someone in the group who still moans, but at least they’ve got their favourite cuisine to moan about so it’s a win-win.

It’s a bright and airy development which is spacious, although it was at near capacity in terms of the seating when we visited on a Saturday afternoon.

There are numerous food venues around the site, served by one central bar. The food venues include Polpetta who sells subs, Christakis who sell Greek food, Spice Thai who it will come as no surprise sell Thai food, Pattersons who sell fried chicken, Little Furnace who sell pizzas, Hafla Hafla who served Middle Eastern food, Richie’s who sell burgers, La Bistroteca who served bistro food and the Midnight Delivery who serve desserts. That’s quite a variety and should surprise and delight most people, although the prices are towards the higher end of the scale.

There was a little space on the upstairs area, which also had the advantage of a fan and these views over the market. I thought that the music was too loud, but to be fair, I’m now over 29 and I often think that the music is too loud so I’d advise my two loyal readers to take that with a pinch of salt.

I went for the Big Wave beer from Kona Brewing and it was refreshing, but uninspiring and rather generic. The pricing was also odd, my half pint was less than half of the cost of a full pint which seemed strange. I wasn’t massively engaged with the beer options here and for an on-trend venue there are surprisingly few Untappd check-ins. They need some Funky Fluid, that’s what they need. Back to the subject of Untappd (which I mention frequently and don’t forget I’m always after new beer friends so do add me at https://untappd.com/user/julwhite), I can’t recall taking the photo but I’m sure that I had Untappd in mind.

We were going to come back the following day to eat here in the evening, but Bev found another food court in the city centre and so we opted for that one. There was a laid-back atmosphere at the Baltic Market and it’s well reviewed on-line although one person said that “it’s set up to appeal to a young, less discerning demographic”. Nothing like a little age based sneering…. I respected the set-up here, the informality worked for me and the staff were keeping everything clean and organised. It’s perhaps not a hidden gem, it’s all a bit busy for that, but it seems like a place where you feel at least some of the action in the city is occuring.