The best restaurants in Leeds

North Star Coffee Shop & General Store
Cheap eats, casual dining, kid-friendly

On Leeds Dock, this coffee roastery’s café serves a neat flat white, a full menu running from Yorkshire sausage hash to seasonal grain bowls, and magical baking from Sarah Lemanski and Hannah Mather’s neighbouring Nova Bakehouse. This flour powerhouse bakes a mega four cheese rye scone and possibly the most decadent salted caramel brownie you'll ever taste. Around North Star’s chic, skimmed-concrete walls you'll also find products for sale, from ceramics to free-range eggs. Bakery items from £2; dishes from around £5.

Home
Special occasion, casual dining
Hidden above an unremarkable shopping precinct, this handsome dining room – a Scandi-tinged neo-Georgian space - is where chef-owners Liz Cottam and Mark Owens deliver monthly-changing tasting menus of seasonally inspired modern British food. Underpinned by fine Yorkshire produce, dishes such as roast garlic rabbit dumplings, a caviar-topped riff on omelette Arnold Bennett with crumpets, or perfect pan-roasted halibut with slivers of Jerusalem artichoke and a creamed fish stock reduction, are elegant crowd-pleasers. Chef Adam Rasburn oversees daily services, as Owens and Cottam are also busy opening a cluster of venues in Kirkgate Market. These include their 21st century pub, The Owl. Menus from £88.

Owt
Cheap eats, casual dining

The premise behind Owt is as neat and simple as this tiny Kirkgate Market café unit. Owners James Simpson and Esther Miglio write fresh menus weekly, taking inspiration from the market’s produce to create a tight list of affordable, lovingly assembled dishes – all backed-up by terrific baking, vegan sausage rolls and surprisingly good, free filter coffee. Dishes might range from a breakfast of smoked haddock, hash browns, soft boiled egg and greens to a knock-out bolognese with perfectly al dente linguine for lunch. A real find, this. Lunch meals from £6.95.

Sarto
Casual dining, cheap eats, kid-friendly
The views of Leeds bus station won't rival Rome or Milan, but, in Sarto, Laynes Espresso’s Dave Olejnik has created a fresh pasta joint whose creative, largely meat-free dishes would cut a dash anywhere. Sarto’s communal dining room – an ultra-minimal, retro-modern gem – is as sharp as the cooking across renowned arancini or, for instance, a winningly spiky plate of kale and almond pesto fettucine with pickled cauliflower. Portions are sensible and prices keen. Pastas from £11.

Little Bao Boy @ Leeds City Tap
Casual dining, cheap eats

Most folk will hit North Brewing’s tap for its 19 lines of IPAs, impy stouts and triple-fruited gose rarities. But from Little Bao Boy’s hatch-kitchen you can also eat next-level bao, noodle soups and gyoza. Owner James Ooi’s buns are persuasively light and his inventive fillings (fried chicken thighs marinated in gochujang buttermilk, for instance), bristle with big flavours. His shredded beef brisket is a deep dive into the mutually reinforcing qualities of heat and spice. Buns from £5.

Eat Your Greens
Casual dining

A collab between the Outlaws Yacht Club bar and Leeds’ foremost flexitarian chefs, Grub & Grog, this grocer’s-cum-casual diner is almost entirely meat-free. The cookbooks on display (Noma, Ottolenghi, Ethicurean) are good pointers, stylistically. Think: organic seasonal produce and big natural flavours tweaked, preserved and concentrated into vibrant plates of wow. The brunch menu: kimchi hash, baked eggs in creamed celeriac, stout rarebit etc, is a doozy. Plates from £9.

Water Lane Boathouse
Casual dining

In summer, Leeds makes a beeline for this canal-side spot, a sister operation to those hip, food-savvy venues, Headrow House and Belgrave Music Hall. Beyond alfresco boozing, its menu of sourdough pizzas, burgers and salads constitutes some of the city’s best ad hoc, pub-ish grub. Order the panko-crumbed fish finger butty, a side of chef Ben Davy’s legendary skin-on chips and a pint of something good from Northern Monk. It is a great way to fritter away an hour. Meals from £6.50.

The Man Behind the Curtain
Special occasion

Channelling the avant-garde spirit of Spanish nueva cocina, chef-owner Michael O’Hare has turned this restaurant into a highly regarded Michelin-starred destination you need to book months in advance. O’Hare’s tasting menus deliver ornate creations often served on outlandish crockery. Options include the veal sweetbread, char siu octopus and ajo blanco soup. Tasting menu from £65.

Ox Club
Casual dining
After creating the food outlets at Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen, chef Ben Davy significantly upped the ante at Ox Club, his cool, friendly restaurant at Headrow House. The kitchen features a solid fuel grill imported from the US and the food showcases the best of Yorkshire produce. Try the barbecued lamb neck with smoked potato or the smoked celeriac with braised celery, followed by burnt Basque cheesecake with Yorkshire rhubarb. Mains from £20.

Pizza Fella
Casual dining, cheap eat, kid-friendly

Every modern city deserves a fastidious joint serving wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizza. In Leeds' city centre, that place is Pizza Fella. These street-food graduates, now based in a raw, fashionably stripped-back space on Vicar Lane, serve magnificent pizzas layered with vibrant San Marzano sauce. The fresh, elastic bases are beautifully and authentically spotted with char, a technique known as ‘leoparding’. From £7.

Tharavadu
Casual dining, cheap eat

For Brits used to heavy, oily, high-street curries, the light, sensitively spiced food of southern India can be revelatory, with plenty of coconut, mustard seeds, fish and vegetables. This simple, handsome space of rustic dark wood and huge digital prints of coastal Kerala is a great place to start that adventure. For cooking of this calibre, try its express lunch option: three curries, a side dish and rice, plus ineffably light, crisp dosa and chutneys. It’s a steal. Express lunch from £8.45; mains from £8.25.

Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen
Casual dining, cheap eat
This hip, late-night bar and music venue, complete with quirky rooftop terrace, is no slouch on the food front. Its NY-style slice kitchen, Dough Boys, serves terrific pizza, with your first two slices half-price (until 7pm, Sunday-Thursday; 5pm, Friday and Saturday). Try the meat-free 'queen brie' pizza with French brie, caramelised onions, red grapes and black pepper. The venue also hosts Belgrave Feast, an art and street-food market held every second Saturday.

Laynes Espresso
Casual dining, cheap eat, kid-friendly

The city’s premier third-wave coffee shop (all your flat white and single-origin, pour-over needs covered) is arguably one of the best brunch spots in Leeds. A colourful menu runs the gamut of global flavours, from shakshuka with sourdough toast to a rarebit with Henderson’s Relish – Yorkshire’s answer to Worcestershire sauce. From £6.

The Reliance
Casual dining

Well into its second decade, this boho café-bar and dining room remains enthusiastic and agile. Its selection of craft beers and natural wines is exemplary. Try a sharing board of homemade charcuterie, followed by small plates of Toulouse sausage with mash and onion gravy, battered haddock and twice cooked chips or Yorkshire asparagus with black garlic. Heartier main options include braised rabbit with pancetta. Mains from £14.

Bundobust
Cheap eat, casual dining

If you’re looking for a venue that encapsulates the city’s contemporary dining scene, Bundobust has a street-food vibe, DIY decor and craft beer. A collaboration between Marko Husak (of Bradford beer bar The Sparrow) and chef Mayur Patel (whose family run West Yorkshire’s Gujarati restaurant, Prashad), Bundobust originally sold itself, modestly, as a bar that happened to serve vegetarian Indian small plates. It remains steadfastly no frills but Bundobust’s bhel puri, massala dosa, tarka dhal and bhajis are all exceptional in their freshness, depth and adept spicing. Plates from £4.

Just Grand! Vintage Tearoom
Cheap eat, kid-friendly

There are swankier afternoon tea options in central Leeds, such as Harvey Nichols (from £20pp), but if it's homespun indie character you're after, then this Grand Arcade tea room dotted with quirky bric-a-brac is the perfect spot. Loose leaf teas and rosé or prosecco accompany good-quality, freshly baked scones and sound homemade cakes, including matured fruit cake served with a slab of Wensleydale cheese. There's also the gentleman’s afternoon tea option, featuring crisps, pork pie and local ales. Afternoon tea from £16.95.

Manjit's Kitchen
Cheap eat

Located within a vast street-food hall at Kirkgate Market, this is the first fixed outlet for one of Leeds’ most popular mobile kitchens. Tasty thali plates of home-cooked veggie curries are served alongside chilli paneer or pakora wraps, dosa and bhajis. There's seating if you wish to linger, and Manjit’s serves a range of wine and beers with its curries. Manjit’s Kitchen is also now open at a permanent site at 333 Kirkstall Road (a mile or two outside the city-centre). Meals from £6.50

Salvo's
Casual dining, kid-friendly

Should you find yourself in the happening suburb of Headingley, there are a few notable local dining options (such as Zucco and Ecco Pizzeria). But, particularly if you're dining as a big family or group, Salvo's is a cut above; this family-owned Italian has real cross-generational appeal. Head here for relaxed dining in an informal atmosphere. For more hardcore foodie thrills, head next door to Salvo's Salumeria – a deli-café offering sharing platters, seafood dinners and salads. Mains from £10.

Viet Guy
Casual dining

Beyond the standard beefy, slow-cooked pho noodle soups, this simple restaurant offers plenty of Vietnamese thrills for the adventurous foodie, with plates of lemongrass and chilli stir-fried duck or deep-fried seabass with mango sauce – and that's before you get to the colourful pots of pickled garlic and preserved chillies sat on each table. The sunny, welcoming staff are fantastic. Mains from £7.50.