The immensity of this “cavernous” Victorian edifice is daunting, and rather overshadows the spin-off operation of leading local chef, Anthony Flinn; service can seem “disinterested” too, and the “modern, bistro-type fare” is sometimes “poorly prepared”.
Keep your own review of The Piazza By Anthony, The Corn Exchange using our diary service.
The critics meal ranges from “an incredibly memorable, delicious” main course, to a desert (crème brûlée) that was so wrong “it was like eating with dirty teeth”. Her overall experience sits between these extremes; “it was a B+ meal” where “almost everything fell one notch short of where it was aimed”.
Tracey MacLeod (20th April 2009)
Food 4/5 stars, Ambience 3/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars
“Colonising the cavernous ground floor of the city's grand Victorian Corn Exchange, Piazza is an ambitious and elegant temple to all things foodie, containing produce shops, café, bar and private dining rooms, with a 125-seat brasserie at its heart.” The critic is impressed by her meal the Flinns' latest venture, and appreciates that “deliver[ing] food of this quality at a reasonable price in a setting this spectacular is not easy to do”.
Terry Durack (9th March 2009)
15/20
Anthony Flinn is the “brightest young chef to come out of the north of England in years”, says the critic. He has recently launched “his most ambitious project to date, a £500,000 gastrodome in Leeds's Grade I-listed gem of a Corn Exchange”
Jay Rayner (23rd February 2009)
The critic notes that he has long expressed his praise for leading Leeds chef Anthony Flynn’s flagship restaurant, Anthony's, and observes that: “Michelin's continued refusal to recognise what he's doing there blunts their reputation, not his”. (We made broadly the same observation in the current edition of our UK restaurant guide.)