We know what you’re thinking. ‘Here I am, in a strange new city, with very little idea what’s what and where’s where, and now it’s the weekend. I wish I had some tips on places to go to eat and drink compiled by a middle-aged Journalism lecturer.’
Well, it’s your lucky day, writes Jeremy Clay.
Leicester has all the usual chains, from the blah-blah burger and pizza places to the likes of Cosy Club, Tim Hortons, the Giggling Squid and so on. We’ll take it as read that you know all about them and press on to the independent stuff that help make Leicester, well, Leicester.
This is just an introduction, mind – some suggestions to get you going. One of the pleasures of moving somewhere new is finding your own favourite places.
Pubs and bars
Let’s start on home turf. The Soar Point is one of DMU’s go-to pubs, with screens showing BT and Sky Sport, pool and foosball tables, and a terrace overlooking the Mile Straight (the stretch of canal that runs by the campus).
Your nearest pub to the Clephan building (home to the Journalism department) is the Bowling Green. They screen live sport here too, and the food menu includes all-day breakfasts, which is handy for those days when your body clock is completely out of sync with Greenwich Mean Time.
On the other side of the campus, you’ll come to Braunstone Gate, home to 2Funky Music Café and rock bar the Metal Monocle.
If you go through this medieval archway on the campus …
.. you’ll find: a) the church where Chaucer is said to have married; b) Leicester Castle, which doesn’t much look like one from the outside; and c) Leicester’s smallest pub, a bonsai boozer called the Castle. Warning: there’s a fair-to-middling chance of bumping into some of your lecturers.
The chances of your taste in places to drink coinciding with mine are so remote it’s hardly worth me mentioning some of the ones I like the best. But I’m going to anyway. The Globe has been going since 1720, so it would be rude not to visit. The Rutland and Derby is an elegant old pub with a roof terrace and a menu that includes poutine (catnip for Canadians) among the usual suspects. The Black Horse, also on Braunstone Gate, is brilliant, and you may well love it – but probably in about 25 years’ time. The Blue Boar sells mighty cheese and onion cobs that a) went viral and b) might induce lactose intolerance just by looking at them.
On the south side of town, the Marquis is handsome, the Old Horse boasts Leicester’s biggest beer garden, the Clarry is decent for sport and Monday night curries, and the Cradock does good food, has a decent beer garden and an even better quiz on a Tuesday night. Plus, there’s a sculpted fox chasing a hare across its thatched roof, so, y’know, tick.
In the city centre, Wygston’s House, on Jubilee Square, is one of Leicester’s oldest and newest pubs, as it opened in 2017 in a strikingly wonky 15th century building. It’s not the cheapest place to drink in the city but you’ll be sitting in a place that was already quite old when Shakespeare was born. The Tree, on the High Street, has a spiffy little garden and an all-day, all-week 20% off deal for students. Plus, they allow dogs in, so if you’re missing your own, and want to treat someone else’s as a fleeting surrogate, knock yourself out.
At one point, people would have called Firebug grungy. Insert the current term here. It’s open until 4am every single night of the week and has a pop quiz on Tuesdays, should you feel the need to answer questions about … *Googles band names from the last decade* … girl in red. Cough.
If bars, cocktails and/or gin are more your thing, you’re spoiled for choice. Try Sophy (open until 6am some nights), 33CankStreet, the Gadabout, the Exchange Bar, Bruxelles, 45 West, Little Sister, craft beer bar Tønne and the Bottle Garden. Though maybe not on one night. And good luck with your finances.
Don’t drink? Need a night off? &KITH is a cafe with mocktails.
Food
If Leicester people can agree on one thing, it’s that they can’t agree on which is the best samosa shop. Which is a bit odd, as it’s clearly Mithaas on Narborough Road. They do swoon-inducing, cheap veggie curries too. Milan Sweets, on East Park Road, is worth a visit too.
There are more curry houses in Leicester than you could shake a cinnamon stick at. You can find good ones all over the city, but Belgrave Road – home to what’s sometimes said to be the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India – deserves exploring. It’s quite possibly the veggiest stretch of road in Britain, with loads of meat-free restaurants. There’s a little-known bit of media law that requires every national journalist visiting Leicester to go to Bobby’s for a quote (and in the hope of blagging some free bhajis, no doubt).
Kayal, on Granby Street, near the railway station, has taught a culinary trick or two to Paul Hollywood and the Hairy Bikers. It serves up seafood, meat and vegetable curries from the tropical Kerala region of India, while its sister restaurant Herb, just across the street, is purely vegetarian and vegan. A little further out from the city centre, the Little Club or Paddy’s Marten Inn are both brilliant, and well worth the Uber. Honest, go!
Full disclosure: I’ve not been to Istanbul. Nor have I been to Istanbul, on the Narborough Road. But I know for a fact – a fact! – that people rate them both. The restaurant is usually rammed, which is a good sign, eh?
Talking of signs, there’s none outside Casa Romana, just a green door on an unassuming side road off Belvoir Street (it’s pronounced ‘Belvoir’, by the way. You’re welcome). Inside, you’ll find one of the best Italian restaurants in the Midlands: simple food, done brilliantly. Be sure to book: Casa Romana is half-restaurant, half-cult, with a devoted following.
Casa Romana doesn’t do pizzas, mind. When you crave a proper pizza – and with the power of suggestion, it’s quite possible that’s suddenly right now – then Maurizio’s is definitely the place. Leicester people love it so much it’s moved three times in the last five years, shifting on each occasion to a bigger base. You’ll find it in Hotel Street, for now at least.
The Korean-inspired Grounded Kitchen is a Leicester success story which has spread across the Midlands. The original store is on Queens Road, deep in Leicester University territory. And if we are breaking the rule a little by mentioning slightly smaller scale chains, say hello to Tamatanga and Afrikana.
But sometimes (read: with indecent regularly) nothing else will do but a good fry-up. Cafe Two Ten, at the far end of Narborough Road is a reliable source of dezombification breakfasts. Café Roma, on Halford Street, is a decent bet for pasta and a proper espresso, and actually feels a bit like being in Italy – or simply abroad, at least – if you face away from the window and/or squint a bit.
Keep going towards the Curve theatre, and you’ll find Grays Coffee Shop & Kitchen. Well, you will, if you know where to look. It’s squirrelled away in the LCB Depot business centre, but it’s no works canteen. The current menu includes tuna toasties, vegan burgers and quadruple-cooked chips. Quadruple! Have some of that, you thrice-cooked slackers.
In case of sunshine – or gloom, or joy, or persistent nagging by your sweet tooth – try Gelato Village, on the edge of St Martin’s Square. USP: luxury ice cream, made with Leicestershire milk by two splendid men from Turin. The result is about as far from a Strawberry Mivvi as it’s possible to get. What’s that? Oh, ask your mum. Or, more likely, your nan. Actually, better yet, don’t bother. But do bother with Mediterranean restaurant The Frame, also in St Martin’s.
Crafty Burger is a much-loved regular pop-up restaurant which runs on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at Crafty’s, formerly St Martin’s Coffee Shop – random review on TripAdvisor: “I have never been disappointed”. By Crafty’s, we imagine they mean, rather than life generally.
Bread & Honey, a stone’s throw from the DMU campus – if you can lob a stone several hundred feet, that is – packs a lot into a small place: home-made soups, fresh cakes, Belgian single-hot chocolate and Monmouth coffee too, which apparently makes people who know about such things levitate slightly with joy. Saints of Mokha, on Belvoir Street, has been crowned one of the top 100 coffee shops in Europe. Even handier, they’ve just opened an outlet on the DMU campus. Public sits in the splendid Canopy building, an old shipment yard in King Street. It’s so stylish that there’s a bit of me that fears it will turn out to be a dreadful error, and it’s been delivered to the wrong city.
If you’ve got a visit from your folks pencilled in, push the boat out with a posh curry at Chutney Ivy (opposite the Curve theatre and handy for the Exchange bar). Or, head up the Hinckley Road and keep going – no, further … more … no, you haven’t gone wrong, promise – and you’ll eventually come to Winstanley House, a smart wedding venue/hotel/restaurant/bar on Braunstone Park. It’s in the city, but you’ll feel like you’re right out in the sticks.
A final tip: Leicester’s LCB Depot, near Curve theatre, hosts #LastFriday at the tail end of each month, with street food stalls, DJs, cocktails, music and arts.
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