Leeds, Indian Restaurant Guide

“Very tasty authentic Indian vegan and vegetarian street food” is paired with a “great beer selection” at the Leeds branch of the Manchester-based winner. “Could just as easily be in the ‘best Indian’ or ‘best cheap eats’ category”. Top Tip – “you have to try the okra fries!”.

Shabir Hussain’s “fantastic” curry house prepares “Indian, Asian, Balti, Pakistani dishes to sort everyone’s taste buds”. Over three decades it has grown from a 28-seater in Bradford city centre into a national chain with spin-offs from Birmingham to Glasgow. The menu features two ‘challenges’ for the greedy or brave – on quantity and heat.

This 500-seat mega-restaurant is “still immensely popular with the Asian community”, having started out more than 40 years ago as a tiny Kashmiri shop on the same street it now dominates. It’s “maybe too big these days” to hit the highest culinary ratings, but remains a “great place for a family get-together”. There’s now a spin-off in Leeds and a national brand of ready meals. Mumtaz banned alcohol on the premises in 2019, ‘to uphold the memory of our late Mother’, founder Farzand Begum.

Mohammed Sabir was still working as a bus driver in Shipley when he launched his Kashmiri curry business as a mobile takeaway from his Commer van, the ‘Spice Box’ in 1976. The next year he opened his first bricks-and-mortar restaurant Aagrah, which still wins consistently solid marks for its food and has nine branches across Yorkshire.

Manjit’s “fantastic and ever-reliable” Indian vegetarian street food – found at Kirkgate Market and the more recent restaurant on Kirkstall Road – “will always leave you wanting to come back for more”. Unlike many veggie places, they keep things interesting with a “frequently changing menu, and collaboration brews too”.

Ex-Gymkhana chefs, Nand Kishor and Sanjay Gour have stormed London’s outer burbs with their outstanding Ewell-based Indian restaurant and now, in July 2022 have opened ‘up north’ in Adel – one of Leeds’s northerly burbs. Judging from the pics, the decor in this newcomer is a tad more upmarket than in Ewell, but admittedly that’s not setting the bar super-high. Many dishes are shared between the two menus – if they can replicate their success in Surrey this could be one of the more exciting openings in the city in recent years.