Reviews in Leeds City Centre

Great food, great service, great decor but great shame that you have to pay to park anywhere near. Also for a restaurant near a busy city centre to be able to compete it shouldn't handicap itself by denying its customers the opportunity to drink alcohol with their meal. No Drinks Licence & your not allowed to take your own drinks in. Sorry but there are too many good Indian Restaurants near by that don't have the drinks ban.

Went as part of a party of 24 for their set menu. Very impressed by the service (fast and solicitous), portion sizes (plenty of everything for everyone) and the quality of the food. Would have liked a few different options, though.

Fantastic food and service, very reasonably priced, best curry house in Leeds.

This is a fab little place, great value food - the box meals are amazing, you get your own TV dinner style box with little compartments of dipping sauce, rice, tempura (delicious), salad and whatever your main course is for about £12. I'm vegetarian and I love it as they have 'fake chicken' which appears to be a type of quite tough tofu, I'm making it sound weird but it's really yummy, loads of just vegetable type dishes as well if you don't like the fake meat substitutes. The only bug bear is that you can't book a table so if you are going on a weekend make sure you arrive with about 1 hours notice of when you want to eat as you will have to wait. The service can also be a little bit slow so be prepared to wait when they are busy

The Cross Keys is a taste of the countryside brought to the city centre. Cosy nooks, original beams and exposed brickwork all add to the character of this well cared for pub. Their drinks selection is varied and interesting, Yorkshire ales and bottled beers from around the world. But their real secret weapon is their wonderful food. Fresh British ingredients, unusual dishes and excellent cooking make dining at The Cross Keys a really enjoyable experience. I couldn't be more impressed and will be making the short journey out of town a regular part of my week. Love it!

fab night out food and atmosphere was great, would definitely recommend yum yum :)

Brilliant place, wonderful food, great service and lovely views for somewhere so near the city centre

La Besi provides a great atmosphere for relaxing during lunch or for entertaining friends over dinner. The home-cooked food is especially pleasing, bearing in mind the relative low cost and the friendly service by which it is brought to the table-side. Not only that, but La Besi serves the best coffee in Leeds city centre!

Akmal's is always my first choice for curry. The service is great and the food is always delicious. If you have never been, you must go, it is one of the best Indian restaurants in Leeds in my opinion.

What a disappointment! I used to eat there few years ago when the service and the atmosphere were excellent. Unfortunately something must have changed as yesterday I had a very disappointing experience when I went there to eat with a good friend with the intention of treating ourselves. The food was average: I ordered a Vegetable Tempura that was nice but slightly cold. My main course was a Green Thai Curry with coconut rice. The curry was blunt and lacked of any flavor while the rice had certainly not been in contact with any coconut! The service was mediocre too. On top of this, when it was time to pay, the POS was not working properly and it nearly took us 20 minutes to pay. No apologies were given and we had to insist to have the copies of the failed transactions. The bill reached a good £80 for 2 starters, 2 mains and 2 cocktails (and no wine!!!). We would have not minded it should have we been satisfied. I think I will give it a miss for another couple of years and see if things might improve!

The following is the actual letter I wrote to Mumtaz following a terrible night there. If you take nothing away more than remembering to ask for your parking ticket to be stamped, then there was a point to this review. The outcome of the complaint after much communication was a rather insulting "£20 voucher off" our next meal there, received over a month later. We duly returned the voucher... Haven spoken to the Manager, Rap, and the floor manager, I am, as suggested, writing to let you know about the series of events that upset our Valentines diner at your establishment last night. From start to finish, nothing seemed to go right, and by that I mean from booking on the phone to leaving the car park. I have no idea where you are trying to position the restaurant, but I was looking for a high class experience, and it was simply dreadful, worse than the service I would have expected in a greasy spoon cafe! Clearly it was valentine’s day and I had already booked to see the Opera at The Grand in Leeds. After seeing a news story about how Clarence Place was suffering, I decided to look up the restaurants as I am from London and do not know Leeds. The promise of a new restaurant that had spent millions on the decor seemed a great choice, however, this list of issues below perhaps shows why the area is in dire straits: On booking, I was told there was ONLY the choice of the set menu that night, yet I saw other people ordering alternative food On arrival, the staff that were milling around the entrance seemed uninterested that we had pre-booked, and for ease to us pre-paid After a short spell huddled on over-crowded sofas, We were shown to a table and left there for 15 minutes, then, a different waitress took pity on us and asked if we were being looked after, to which we replied no, and she went and at least got us at the valentines menu to look at. We were giving some fizzy grape juice, with no mention of any other drinks available, yet I saw other people with non alcoholic cocktails, we were not provided with any sort of drinks menu The food came, which was fine, not great, but fine. The dessert came, which was not, two specific complaints, the milk pudding was served with a tiny tea spoon, we had to ask twice for an “adult size” spoon, the ice cream was more like a milk shake it was so melted and the drips down the side and base made it look dirty. Is it too much to have them wiped before they are served? We did not eat the puddings. The table was cleared and we were left sitting there. We waited and tried to decide what to do, I had after all paid before we arrived. We sat with our coats on but no sign of our waiter. A different waitress came up and asked us what are we waiting for? I replied I don’t know, our table is clear can I have a bill or receipt or something? She said we should take the bill folder to the front desk, our waiter never mentioned this. Despite me telling several people we had paid, I was asked again for £49.95 I complained at the time, and the floor Manageress who asked us to take a seat. While we waited, an unannounced coffee we didn’t want arrived (which we didn’t drink), followed by the floor manager with a box of Indian sweets (which are not to our taste) by way of apology. I thought this was a joke, but as the evening was ruined enough could not muster the energy to make any more of a fuss, that is until I got to the car park... To top it all, we went to the car park to pay for parking (£4.50). I fellow guest who had seen us in the restaurant came up to me and said, oh, in future Mumtaz will validate your parking ticket for free! No mention at any time of this when in the restaurant, how would we know to ask? So not only did we have a truly terrible time, we paid 10% more than everyone else for the privilege! Finally, this meal was advertised as a Valentines Dinner. I am not sure what this was supposed to mean. There was absolutely no effort to make the place feel in any way valentines, one tiny red candle does not make a valentines dinner, no flowers, no mood lighting, just a regular over priced and under-performing night at Mumtaz. Really really bad.

Terrible drop in quality - used to be the best - now possibly the worst

I have eaten regularly at Red Chilli since it first opened, and have been a huge fan all this time. However, I heard that they have changed chefs sometime last year (maybe in the latter half of the year). Sadly, having been back there several times in the last 6 months, I can say that I feel the food has gone downhill. For example, one of my favourite dishes "yu xiang rou si" (shredded pork cooked with bamboo shoots and mushrooms ect - I don't know it's English name on the menu!) used to be somewhat hot and gently sour, with just a touch of sweetness, but now just has a sweet sauce that tastes like a generic Cantonese or (or Shanghainese) dish from a takeaway! The duck is as good as ever, but definitely I feel several of the Sichuan dishes no longer taste very authentic (or even very good). Maybe this won't worry most people (and it needn't, necessarily) but for me, what made Red Chilli such an oasis was the fact that almost all Chinese restaurants and takeaways in the UK all sell Cantonese food - Red Chilli was the first in Leeds to sell Sichuan and Northern style Chinese food - two totally different styles of cooking. A new restaurant opened in Leeds recently called Home Town restaurant, in Vicar lane, just a few doors down from Tong Palace. It lacks the exquisite decor of Red Chilli, but the food is authentic Sichuan and Northern Chinese cuisine, and after 3 visits, I can confirm that they do it well, and the staff are really nice, friendly and helpful. I hope Red Chilli can improve its cooking again, as it's still a real destination restaurant in Leeds, and for the sake of introducing UK people to other kinds of Chinese cuisine, it's been a great ambassador. But check out both of the restaurants I've discussed here and see what you think!

Came here for dinner last night and, as usual, was impressed by the food, although the bruschetta was a little heavy on the balsamic vinegar. The kitchen was obviously backed up as our main courses took ages to arrive, but they were perfectly cooked - I always appreciate a restaurant that can serve good mashed potato with its lamb shank. Still a favourite for an inexpensive evening.

I've been a regular visitor to Ciao Bella ever since it has opened and have found the staff and family exceptionally welcoming and the food delicious. I would recommend this restaurant to people celebrating a special occasion but also those who would like a cosy relaxed dinner for two.

This is where you want to eat. Italian cuisine is given the royal treatment at this magnificent set , a place where words like "flawless" and "perfection" aren't just abstract terms ... they're measurable daily standards. Owner-Bafti never fails to dazzle with dishes... and for me, it is the only place I want to eat.

waited a hour and a half for a table then another hour for food but they brought main meal out and put it under a light bulb there were 9 of us so food was going cold then 20 mins later our starters came and were cold we eventually refused the meals and had to wait again for meals. i will never visit this place again it was my 40th birthday and they spoilt it. the date i went was 27th feb 2010

As fantastic as the food and service is at Akbars i must say that you fancy a nice relaxed atmosphere then DONT go here. This place caters for large groups and the dining room can become EXTREMELY noisy when its busy. You may need ear plugs to cope with the noise of everyone shouting over each other. The food is however faultless and service fantastic. If you are in a small group then visit the other Akbars in Leeds, you wont be disappointed!!!