Harden's survey result
Summary
“Michael O’Hare is a great innovator and leader of his team” and has won fame for this (perhaps excessively monochrome) basement in the city-centre. “All staff are exceptional and work as a team and the chefs bring some of the courses out and explain the concepts” of a wild and wacky gastronomic journey whose tasting menu aims for showmanship and culinary fireworks. No gripes this year about the pricing and ratings for the experience were consistently very high. That said, there is not quite the huge volume of feedback it once inspired.
Summary
“Everything about The Man Behind The Curtain is exciting, delivering star quality without being stuffy and dry!” – Michael O’Hare’s “genuinely exceptional and innovative” city-centre venture is “set in a basement, but a really trendy and modern one”, and he has carved his major gastronomic reputation with “serious food with a sense of fun and almost ridiculous attention to detail”. But whereas most reporters remain dazzled by his culinary pyrotechnics (not to mention the crockery!), ratings are again sapped by a minority for whom the performance is not terrible but “vastly overrated”, not helped by prices – in particular for wine – which can be a bit “galling”.
Summary
“Everything about The Man Behind The Curtain is exciting, delivering star quality without being stuffy and dry!” – Michael O’Hare’s “genuinely exceptional and innovative” city-centre venture is “set in a basement, but a really trendy and modern one”, and he has carved his major gastronomic reputation with “serious food with a sense of fun and almost ridiculous attention to detail”. But whereas most reporters remain dazzled by his culinary pyrotechnics (not to mention the crockery!), ratings are again sapped by a minority for whom the performance is not terrible but “vastly overrated”, not helped by prices – in particular for wine – which can be a bit “galling”.
Summary
“Takes all your prejudices and chucks ’em out of the window” – Michael O’Hare’s wild and wacky city-centre four-year-old continues to astound and delight its large fan base with multi-course extravaganzas that are a total wow: “pure theatre”, with “sensational” dishes (“beautifully artistic presentations, without losing any balance of texture or flavour”) delivered by “great northern servers who cut through the potential pretension”. There’s no hiding, however, that it has put in a more mixed performance since it moved in October 2017 from the quirky rooftop space over the Flannels department store to the newly-converted basement below it, with a vocal minority of refuseniks now dragging ratings down: “not as good as it used to be…”, “more style over substance now…”, “chef seems to be playing the ‘superstar’, but the food can be disappointing”.
For 31 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. In a typical year, diners submit over 50,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK. Each year, the guide is re-written from scratch based on this survey (although for the 2021 edition, reviews are little changed from 2020 as no survey could run for that year).
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Restaurant details
The Man Behind The Curtain Restaurant Diner Reviews
"Continues to evolve and some excellent dishes, but let down by 2 dishes being below correct serving temperature. Interesting space and justifiably very popular"
"The food pushed the limits of taste even further than the Fat Duck but we loved it even if some dishes went a little far (oyster in a dessert?). Service was superb but four and a half hours seemed a bit slow, even for fourteen courses."
Prices
| Availability | 2 courses | 3 courses |  |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lunch | £17.00 | £20.00 |  |
|
|
| Dinner | £132.00 | |
|
|
| Cost | Availability | Courses | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menu1 | 88.00 | Lunch only | 9 |
| Menu2 | 132.00 | Dinner only | 14 |
Traditional European menu
| Starter | Main | Veggies | Pudding |
|---|---|---|---|
| £9.00 | £22.00 | £4.00 | £9.00 |
| Drinks |
|
|---|---|
| Wine per bottle | £20.00 |
| Filter Coffee | £3.00 |
| Extras |
|
|---|---|
| Bread | £0.00 |
| Service | 12.50% |
Top Floor Flannels, 68-78 Vicar Ln, Leeds, LS1 7JH
Opening hours
| Monday | CLOSED |
| Tuesday | 6:30 pm‑8:30 pm |
| Wednesday | 6:30 pm‑8:30 pm |
| Thursday | 1 pm‑2 pm, 6:30 pm‑8:30 pm |
| Friday | 1 pm‑2 pm, 6:30 pm‑8:30 pm |
| Saturday | 1 pm‑2 pm, 5 pm‑8:30 pm |
| Sunday | CLOSED |
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