Despite being born at the Countess and living just down the road, I had somehow never actually made it to the new-look Chester Market.
That felt a bit daft, really.
I had visited a few of the traders back in the old market days before the Forum site shut, so there was something quite nice about finally stepping into the current version and spotting a few familiar names alongside plenty of newer ones. Chester Market itself moved into its new Northgate home in Exchange Square in November 2022, replacing the old Forum location, and the idea was clearly to give the city a more modern market with food, drink, produce and shared seating at its heart.
And on first impressions, it does a lot right.
The place feels open, bright, modern and genuinely pleasant to be in. There is plenty of choice when it comes to food, more than at some other markets I have been to, and there are multiple seating areas too. The official blurb talks about four seating areas in total, and that tracks with how it feels when you are there, with room in the middle, near the entrance, and outside as well.
So far, so good.
A lovely space with one very obvious problem
Here is the snag, though. For all the polish, Chester Market feels oddly behind the curve in one major way.
At a lot of other food hall-style places, you grab a table, scan a code or order on an app, and that is that. One person can fancy pizza, someone else can want a burger, and another can go off piste with picky bits, and it all still arrives without anyone having to do laps of the venue like a hungover Deliveroo driver.
At Chester Market, you are back to the old method. You have to go up to the stalls individually, look at the menus there, order there, then wait for the buzzers and go back to collect it yourself.
It is not the end of the world, but it is a bit of a faff.
Because my Mrs does not really enjoy doing the ordering side of things, I ended up wandering round taking photos of menus, then going back round to place orders at multiple traders, then hovering about waiting for buzzers. One trader told us the buzzer only worked inside, which would have been fine if it actually reached where we were sitting. Instead, the food had been sat waiting for a while before I went to check. No one came looking for us either.
That is the sort of thing modern ordering systems fix.
It is also just more convenient. If both of us had gone up together to browse and order, we would have risked losing the table. You can leave belongings there and hope for the best, but I do not particularly love that as a system. Nor do I think people should have to gamble on whether they can safely leave drinks or bags unattended just to order food. It is all manageable, but it is also all avoidable.
The strange part is that Chester Market looks modern enough to feel like it should already have solved this, and the tables even had numbers on them.
Cheezy Bandits got us off to a slightly mixed start
We kicked things off in the Chester Market with buffalo fries for the Mrs from Cheezy Bandits.
This was one of those dishes where some of it landed, and some of it really did not. The fries themselves were decent enough, and she liked the blue cheese and buffalo hot sauce, but the pulled chicken did not really win her over at all. In fact, “practically scraped it off” probably sums it up nicely.
So not a disaster, but not exactly the kind of opening number that makes you sit up and start planning a return trip specifically for that dish.
Mercato’s dough balls looked the part and mostly delivered
Next up on our Chester Market trip were the mozzarella and pepperoni stuffed dough balls from Mercato Pizza Co., or at least I am fairly sure it was called that, even though I would have sworn blind the name looked different while I was there.
This was also the stall where we had the buzzer issue, which slightly took the shine off things, but in terms of the actual food, these looked superb. You could tell they had been freshly made, and the texture was spot on. Crisp on the outside, nicely chewy once you get into them, and generally the sort of thing that disappears quickly if you are not too busy being annoyed at your table collection exercise.
The hot honey dip deserves a mention, too. Thick, clearly homemade, sweet with a little kick, and balanced nicely enough to add some heat without going full goblin mode on your mouth. It tickled your balls rather than kicking you square in the nuts, which is really the sweet spot for this kind of thing.
My only real gripe was value. At £11.50, I did find myself thinking they could have been filled a bit more generously. Nice as they were, that sort of price starts making you look over at the pizza menu and wonder whether you should have just committed to the full thing instead.
Nice Bites served flavour, but forgot the bulk
The spicy chicken strips from Nice Bites were drenched in buffalo sauce and came with a blue cheese dip, so on paper, they were already speaking the Mrs’ language.
And taste-wise, they were good. Really good, actually. They did not feel like some bog-standard frozen strips chucked in a fryer and dressed up after the fact. The coating had character, the buffalo sauce carried proper flavour, and overall, they felt like someone had put a bit of care into them.
The issue was that they looked absolutely starving.
There just was not much to them. You expect chicken strips to actually have a bit of chicken going on inside, and these were a touch too skinny to feel satisfying in the way they should have. So again, decent food, but just not quite the complete package. Sadly, the Mrs devoured these before I could get a snap, as I had to go up and collect my food from one of the other traders at Chester Market.
Sandwich’d absolutely stole the show
Then came the French Dip from Sandwich’d.
My God.
This thing was sensational. The standout in our visit to Chester Market.
Slow-cooked beef brisket, melted Emmental, onion gravy, a freshly baked sub roll, and a side portion of gravy for dipping the whole glorious mess into. This was the standout by a mile. The beef was beautifully tender, the cheese brought everything together, the roll had that ideal balance of crisp outside and soft inside, and the whole thing felt indulgent without turning into an unmanageable grease bomb.
It was also properly filling. I was not far off asking for a box and taking half of it home, which is never a bad sign when you are trying multiple places in one sitting. If I had one criticism, it is only that I would have happily taken more gravy. Not because there was not enough to enjoy it, but because once you get a taste for dipping that sandwich into hot onion gravy, self-control becomes a fictional concept.
It was brilliant.
The food is strong, but Chester Market’s ordering system is not
That is really where I landed with Chester Market overall.
The food, based on what we tried, was good. In one case, excellent. There is variety, there is quality, and there are enough traders there to make you want to go back and work through a few more menus. The market itself looks the part, too. It does not feel tired or awkward or half-done. It feels like a place people would actually want to spend time in, which matters.
But the ordering side drags it back.
Not because walking to a counter is some unbearable hardship, but because when so many other places have already made the whole process easier, more flexible and more table-friendly, Chester Market stands out for lagging behind. It is hard not to notice it. Hard not to think about it. And hard not to imagine how much smoother the visit could be with one decent app and a bit of joined-up thinking.
So, was Chester Market worth the trip?
Chester Market is a good place to eat. Maybe even a very good one, depending on which trader you land on and your personal tastes.
There is plenty of choice, the setting is modern and inviting, and the best of the food more than holds its own. Sandwich’d in particular absolutely slapped. Mercato’s dough balls were strong, even if a bit dear, and Nice Bites and Cheezy Bandits both had enough going for them to suggest there is more worth trying next time around.
And there will be a next time.
That probably says most of what needs saying. Because, for all my moaning about the ordering system, I would still go back. I just wish Chester Market would catch up with the rest of the experience it is trying to offer. Sort that side of things out, and it could be one of those places you recommend without much hesitation at all.
Looking for more independent places we’ve checked out, like Chester Market? Click right here.
