Ahhhh, shisha! I love shisha. And I really love a shisha cafe that serves super-sweet mint tea, and provides you with heaters AND a nice soft blanket to keep you warm in the winter months (damn you, smoking ban!) and that has a wide and varied range of tasty fruity shishas. And that is why I love Musicana.
It's a dark, unassuming place with a fenced-in pavement area for the smokers, and the inside is usually fairly busy, despite the fact that it doesn't serve any booze. This is a great seal of approval; the ambience here is so good that people who don't even want to smoke shisha come here, just to sip tea and hang out.
The shishas on offer range from peach to red apple to strawberry, and though the main thrust is towards juicy fruit flavours, they also occasionally have cinnamon, which is amazing and which I have only ever been able to track down in Camden. For this reason alone, I usually pop in whenever I'm in Rusholme for a curry. Actually, on that note; shisha is absolutely key to any trip-out-for-a-curry.
Even non-smokers can enjoy shisha. It's *nothing* like smoking a cigarette; it tastes nice and it feels like you're just inhaling lovely fruity clouds. Which, of course, you are. Lovely fruity clouds. And for about a fiver a pipe, you can't argue!
Musicana is the best Manchester shisha cafe I've ever been to, and I'm not the only one who thinks so; it's usually quite busy and has a big audience from the Rusholme community. Still, it's surprisingly spacious and they always try their best to squeeze you in if you pop in for a pipe. read more