As places to lunch in Manchester go, I’m not sure there’s many that have been providing midday sustenance for Mancunians - and lesser mortals - since 1806. The Portico Library can make this claim confidently, however.

Yes, it’s a library. But not the stuffy, ‘shushing’ kind. On a lunchtime this week, there was a pleasing burble of conversation, clinking of glasses, rumble of trams and the sound of industry from the tiny kitchen that overlooks Mosley Street.

Writer Elizabeth Gaskell would have had lunch here (her husband William, a minister, was the library’s longest serving chairman). So would John Dalton, Sir Robert Peel and Peter Mark Roget, he of the thesaurus fame, which he started writing on these very premises.

Try MEN Premium for FREE by clicking here for no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features

There's a great lunch to be had

And afterwards, if they had any sense, they all might have dozed off in the cosy reading room in the back, in front of the fire. When it opened, it sold ‘soups, tea, coffee, jellies, ices, orgeat and lemonade’, and much of that is still available today, as it happens.

For many regulars at The Portico - it has over 400 members, at one time including Eric Cantona - it’s a well-kept secret, a place to keep to yourself in case too many people find out about it. But it’s also a place we should be proudly showing off.

It shows off a fair bit itself, to be fair, the moment you walk in. Its ornate domed ceiling is separated with panes of stained glass, illuminated by the sky above, even when it’s miserable and grey outside.

The library was built in 1806

The bookcases, filled with ‘polite literature’ and ‘fine arts’, stretch to the ceiling and the grand clocks are made by John Thwaites of Clerkenwell, one of which points the way to London (from here it’s west south west, in case you were wondering).

There are rotating exhibitions you can visit for free - aptly at the moment it’s about food and drink - if you just want to pop in and look around, not to mention all the writing and drawing workshops, readings and fascinating talks. But I’d heartily recommend stopping by for lunch.

It can be hard to get excited about soup. Almost impossible, in fact. But the tomato and smoked beetroot, warm with some pleasing background spice and seasoned just right, would merit it (£5.50 with a hunk of toasted sourdough, or a £8 if you want a sandwich with it). You could smell the smoke the moment the bowl went down. It was excellent. And I don’t even like beetroot.

Smoked beetroot soup and gnocchi

Gnocchi (£10) might look straightforward enough, but is a bit of a ballache to make, and hard to get right. But the library’s chef Joe Fenn makes it here every day, with changing accompaniments - today it was fried crisp with peas and parmesan. It was filling and sticky and crispy on the outside, and I loved it.

I wasn’t going to have pudding, but they make their own brownies and blondies, not to mention ice cream sundaes, and I’m only flesh and blood. The sour cherry brownie (£3.50) was slowly devoured as I wrote this, though for me a minute or two less in the oven would have made it a bit fudgier. Personal preference there, though, and obviously I ate all of it.

Sandwiches, should you head down that alley, are thick doorstop affairs, made with bread from top bakers Holy Grain (there’s devilled egg mayonnaise, Lancashire cheese, smoked mackerel and pickled cucumber, proper ham and mustard, from £7 with some leaves, coleslaw and salted crisps).

It's a hidden gem

There’s also old school favourites like beans or cheese on toast (£6 or £7), the latter coming with its own reference library of toppings from Worcester Sauce to caramelised leeks to toasted fennel seeds, or a full breakfast (£12). I’d like to think that’s what Eric Cantona had.

You can alternatively just have a brew and take everything in.

There are places in the city - the central library, John Rylands, Chetham’s (hang on, these are all libraries) - where history envelops and seeps into you the moment you arrive. The Portico is one of those places too.

And taking inspiration from Roget, lunch here is excellent, outstanding, wonderful… well, you get the idea with that. Go. But maybe tell everyone it’s rubbish.

The Portico Library, 57 Mosley St, Manchester M2 3HY