Back in July, I travelled up to Leeds with Haydy. We had planned a weekend of catching up with our favourite girls and of course there was lots of eating and drinking. Over the weekend, we managed to sample quite a few different places so I thought I’d compile them all into one post just in case you are looking for somewhere to eat in Leeds. I find posts like this helpful when I am planning a trip away and I’m sure others do too. 

Where you should eat in Leeds

Leeds is such a massive city, with so many different places to eat. It can be quite daunting when you are going to a new city for the first time and you want somewhere to eat. Instead of sticking to our usual chain restaurant favourites such as Nandos and Yo Sushi, we got some recommendations from Leeds locals .We trusted them to recommend the best places to eat in Leeds and they certainly didn’t disappoint!

The Luxury Diner – Trinity Kitchen

Trinity Kitchen is basically the food court section inside Trinity, one of Leeds’ shopping centres. However, rather than having your average restaurants there’s a selection of different street food stalls which rotate on an eight weekly basis. Last time I was in Leeds, I had the most delicious steak sandwich from Trinity Kitchen but this time we went to The Luxury Diner. Although The Luxury Diner is no longer in Trinity Kitchen (they’ve just had their switch around), the owners also run Slap and Pickle which is there at the moment. Here, we had the most amazing loaded fries. There were so many different options but I decided to go with the cheese and bacon fries with added Korean spicy mayo. I can honestly say that I think that these were the best chips I’ve ever had. Even without the lashings of cheese sauce and delicious bacon bits (locally sourced from a farm just outside of Leeds), they were were so tasty. I would have eaten here again over the weekend if we didn’t already have plans to eat elsewhere!

Pieminister

Pieminister is a chain restaurant. They have quite a few locations across the country including Nottingham, Birmingham and London. We went in on the Friday night and were treated to a pie each and a dessert. I chose to go for the Moodog which was “British beef steak, dry cured bacon and Brewdog ale”. This was really delicious. I’m not usually a fan of pies as I don’t like to eat too much pastry. I really liked the filling and would definitely recommend you visit. My pie was served on a bed of mash which was really nice. For dessert, I went for the lemon meringue sundae which was served in a pie crust. I was a bit anoyed to see that the crust had nuts on it; this hadn’t been stated on the menu. Luckily, I’m not allergic to nuts at all. It is worth baring in mind if you are and will be eating here.

MEATliquor

I’d previously been to Meat Liquor in London a couple of times; I didn’t know that they also had a branch in Leeds. We went here on the Saturday lunchtime before the England match. I’d stuffed myself on the hotel’s breakfast buffet so I didn’t fancy eating much. I went for the Green chilli cheese fries “covered in green chilli sauce, melted cheddar cheese & pickled jalapeños” instead of having a burger.

I’m a big fan of spicy food and as you might have gathered, I do love loaded fries. So, these seemed perfect for me. The portion size was huge, so it’s a good job I didn’t go for a burger as well. There was just enough spice to keep it interesting without it being too hot. The cheese also paired well with the jalapeños as it toned the spice down a bit. I’ll definitely be having these again next time I visit a MEATliquor. I also had a can of Soda Folk Cream Soda which is my absolute favourite cream soda. I think that it tastes just like Butterbeer! At home, I have been trying different butterbeer recipes using different types of beer to discover a new taste.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo is actually a cocktail bar, however between 5pm and 9pm they give you a free six inch pizza with every drink. Lizi (our go to for recommendations for where to eat in Leeds) knows the manager and he was kind enough to give us a booth, a bottle of prosecco, a round of drinks and a pizza each. There was such a brilliant atmosphere in Cuckoo, which might have had something to do with England winning against Sweden that afternoon. The music in there was amazing, there wasn’t one bad song in the couple of hours that we were there.

I ordered a Pornstar Martini as I’d never tried one before. However, I couldn’t drink it as it was made with orange juice which is one thing I can’t stand. It was also missing the shot of prosecco, so I was quite disappointed with the drink. Luckily, the pizzas kind of made up for it. I went for the peach and maple bacon one – minus the peach. I found that there was way too much tomato sauce on mine, but for a freebie it wasn’t bad.

Malmaison

I’ve gushed about Malmaison and their Sunday brunch before on my blog, however I’d only ever been to the one in Birmingham. We had no plans for the Sunday lunchtime, so we decided to book into the Leeds Malmaison and got a voucher off Wowcher. Sunday lunch is usually £19.95 for two courses, but our voucher allowed two people to dine for £30. I think that it’s a bargain anyway, but at £15 each it was definitely a steal! As we had prepaid for the meal, all we needed to pay for while we were there were the drinks. I definitely recommend a trip to Malmaison if you’re around on a Sunday and looking for somewhere to eat in Leeds. I went for the roast beef, as usual and it was so tasty. It’s a shame that you now have to pay extra if you want a dessert, but I was so full after the two courses that it didn’t matter too much.

Where would you recommend to eat in Leeds?