Leeds Restaurant Guide

This “buzzy but very noisy” Hispanic quartet (in Marylebone, Farringdon, Victoria and Canary Wharf) offers a “good range of tapas” and “interesting wines by the glass and the bottle”. They still have plenty of admirers as a “reliable” option, even if they “no longer provide the novelty or the high standards they once did”.

This “vibrant and busy” basement venue with an “interesting French menu” is a “longstanding favourite”, whose “very good lunch” makes it an “ideal and consistent business brasserie”. Opened in 1991 and still run by founders restaurateur Robert Chamberlain and exec chef Andrew Carter, its many fans are happy that it has “not changed in 20 years”.

2022 Review: “It’s still got it serving top noodles!” – this well-established Japanese canteen in the Merrion Centre continues to please its small but ardent local fan club.

A “great Thai street food” venture (est. 2015) with a “fun atmosphere” that replicates Bangkok markets, down to the tuk tuks in which you can enjoy a menu featuring an impressive 80 dishes; the colourful mini-chain now has five northern spin-offs.

“The Dead Hippy burger is a dirty, dirty legend” – the best-named burger on British menus and “if not the easiest burger to eat definitely the tastiest” (especially when chased down by a boozy “hard shake”) – at the “cool” chain founded 15 years ago by Scott Collins and Yianni Papoutsis. The expansion of recent years seems to have ground to a halt with the closure of branches in Boxpark Croydon and Clapham Old Town, with a new strategy based around boosting sales via a national network of delivery kitchens launched in 2023. Top Tip – “root beer is available if you want a bit of real Americana!”

2021 Review: The “lovely Thai food” at these reliable cafés is “impressively authentic given that they are a chain” – “excellent value” and “fast”, if occasionally let down by “iffy service”. Founded in 2008 by Saiphin and Alex Moore, who inherited the name of their first East End site, the group has 18 branches in London and expanded to Liverpool, Manchester, Reading (delivery only) and Leeds following the sale of a majority stake to US investors. The couple also have two spin-offs, Lao Café in Covent Garden and the new Chinese noodle bar Hoh Sek in St Katharine Docks.

2022 Review: This large, smart and impressive venue from D&D London, on the fifth floor of the new Trinity Leeds shopping centre, is enclosed in floor-to-ceiling windows with great views over the city, oak and marble interiors and an open kitchen. The cooking is generally considered “good” or better, with a decent set menu as well as more lavish à la carte and tasting menu options.

“A craft beer pub with fabulous Indian vegetarian street food. What’s not to like?” agree fans of the Manchester-based operation whose formula is equally popular in Leeds. It’s “great to be able to take meat-lovers to a veggie restaurant and know they’ll enjoy it!”.

2022 Review: “A really good all-round experience”, this snazzy five-year-old above the Trinity shopping centre is one of four D&D London venues in Leeds, and its first Japanese venture anywhere. The menu majors on sushi and hot dishes from the robata grill to be shared – ‘Issho’ is Japanese for ‘together’ – and there’s a glamorous cocktail bar, Kori, with large choices of sake and Japanese whisky.

The “personal service” at Stuart & Jo Myers’ “fantastic small restaurant” in Mabgate – which they opened twelve years ago as a café called the ‘Greedy Pig Kitchen’ – is “the very definition of hospitality”. “The unconventional cooking is great”, too (including winning cakes). “It’s a 140-mile round trip for us but sooo worth it!”