Simple, tidy, basic, and fully in keeping with what you expect from a café, even one that's doing a quality job.  There's no sense in stating the lack of bells and whistles here.  The chairs were also surprisingly comfy.

The printed menus could do with more frequent reprinting as they were looking a bit haggard, as much as it's no real biggie in a café setting.

For full disclosure, Freddie himself kindly gave us 20% off the bill, which should have been £36. He also gifted us a second sausage roll to take away on top of the discount.  Now as our long term readers know; we prefer to keep a low profile when reviewing hence you'll never see our review team's names or faces on here, but sometimes it's impossible not to be recognised and taken care of by people who you've known for a long time.  We always appreciate it, as much as it doesn’t impact scoring etc. 

But generally, this was great value even before said discount.  About a tenner for a quality breakfast dish and cuppa? You just can't go wrong really.

Absolutely nothing to moan about here, even when you're as much of a skinflint as me.

For those who don’t know, Fred's is bossed by a lovely chap called Freddie Minns.  We've known Freddie for a very long time now, since his days of working for Adam Reid at The French, where he ended up being Head Chef.  The first time I met Freddie was in the kitchen at said venue, and he was prepping some Mrs Kirkham's cheese.  He gave me a little slice despite not knowing me.  I instantly liked him, not just because of the cheese, but because he's just generally got a great vibe about him.  Most importantly in this kind of setting; he can properly cook!

So, when somebody like that opens a humble café, you expect big things.  It's something that we've touched on a dozen times in recent years, but over the last decade and a half in particular, it's been great to see Chefs across the globe swapping high end kitchens for something a bit 'simpler' in terms of technical level (but probably not graft), and in doing so they elevate that product somewhat.  And that’s the story here too guys.

We scanned the menu, despite already doing exactly that 17 times before arrival.  Said carte hits the mark in describing itself; 'Simple things, done very, very well'. I can't really add to that at all.

Fred's Breakfast Bun (£9) was a gleaming stack of joy. A house made bun, sandwiching a sausage patty, crispy bacon, a hashbrown, a runny fried egg, cheese, along with our selected pot of brown sauce.  It was a massive plate, with equally as massive amounts of flavour.

Northern Rarebit (£8) was this time a slice of toasted white loaf, topped with rarebit comprising of Lancashire cheese, English mustard and local beer.  The dish was topped with Henderson’s Relish and fresh chives, then finished with some Cheffy chive oil for an extra allium hit, and some cafe defying boujee presentation.

Sausage Roll (£3.50) was a sturdy log of sausage meat; ground to the right coarseness and expertly seasoned, robed in lovely pastry which had been glazed and then baked to a perfect bronze.   It's one of the best three quids that you'll eat in the city.

Fred's Scotch Egg (£4) was quite simply, beautiful.  Great sausage meat, ground finer than in the above roll, with perfect fat content and was wonderfully seasoned, casing a perfectly soft-boiled egg which clearly had superb provenance from very happy chickens.  The whole thing had then been deep fried until just right.  Honestly faultless.

Hash Browns (£4) ended our excessive trio of side dishes with another win.  Wonderfully crisp squares of joy that were well-seasoned throughout, with a house made condiment on the side.  Textbook and massively enjoyable.

The presence of Henderson's Relish on the menu in a few places is a clear giveaway as to Chef's Yorkshire roots.  Don’t tell him that it tastes basically the same as Worcester Sauce though….. you might get kicked out. It does though, which makes it entirely delicious with anything.

But; the breakfast bun, as delicious as it was, proved difficult to eat in one piece due to its sheer volume, even with a head of the size of mine.  Maybe I need to wash my mouth it, but could it benefit by being smaller?

Friendly, welcoming, warm, prompt, genuine.  Im going to make this section of the review as to the point as most of the menu at Fred's.  No mucking about. 

Nothing comes to mind.  Perfectly pitched for the type of venue that it is.

When penning reviews like this I always feel like a clown, more so than usual to be honest.  Let me explain why.

Our secretive scorecard is used to dictate the black and white 1 to 5 scores which these reviews present, and that scorecard is the basis of all our proper reviews, unlike other media outlets which just pull scores out of their derriere based on largely uneducated opinions.  An objective scorecard is essential for consistency but also has clear drawbacks in certain situations.

Firstly, there's more to any hospitality experience than a simple score.  There's emotion, personal tastes, and an appreciation of what a venue is actually trying to accomplish.  But our infamous and always impartial scorecard judges every venue type on the same level playing field, and admittedly includes things which you'd only ever see, or indeed want to see, in Manchester's premium level dining rooms. 

So judging a great café, a Starred place, or the best pizza place in town, all on the same scorecard, isn't either fair or at times even remotely relevant.  But it is what it is.  We've previously explained this conundrum in reviews of Mcr icons such as Rudy's and Happy Seasons, who are clearly both outstanding at what they do, yet still got lumbered with a 3 or even 2.5-star review.

Fred's is another example of our scorecard, whilst being usually unflappable and wholly accurate, not really fitting the purpose of a super casual venue, which in this case is a café not a restaurant; regardless of their use of green herb oil and a Chef with Michelin level lineage.

So this 3 star review is a zero star reflection of how much we enjoyed Fred's.  My lasting memory of brunch will be the consumption of what was probably the best Scotch Egg I've ever eaten, and a Scotch Egg is one of my favourite things to eat, full stop.  Despite my obsession with all things food in all corners of the world, my death row dinner wouldn’t be the tasting menu from Alchemist or DiverXO; it would be a great kebab. 

So when you eat something so enjoyable that it creates a level of emotion and memory which doesn't leave you for a very long time, that’s the kind of place which has my heart.  Even if professionally, you can't scorecard weight a Scotch Egg the same as a Michelin starred tasting menu.

Maybe we need a new scorecard?