Leicestershire Restaurant Guide

“Incredible Indian street food” has been enjoyed at this Gujarati vegetarian fixture on Leicester’s ‘Golden Mile’ since 1976, when it was opened by the late Bhagwanjibhai and Manglaben Lakhani. Now run by their son Dharmesh, it has been refurbished taking inspiration from the classic Bollywood film ‘Bobby’, the source of its name.

2021 Review: Cyrus Todiwala OBE, the acclaimed Bombay-born TV-chef behind London’s Café Spice Namaste, has chosen a Grade II listed building in the city-centre for his first restaurant outside London; and will feature five separate areas over two floors, including a bar, casual dining and fine dining room. For the town with the biggest Diwali festival outside India, Leicester has always curiously lacked a go-to Indian dining destination – maybe this is it?

This “excellent South Indian” near Leicester Tigers’ Welford Road stadium is “the real deal”, and “never disappoints” with its “superb food served by a wonderful team”. Top Menu Tips – “the fish curry is a delight, as is the masala dosa”.

Now a restaurant with rooms, thanks to two bedrooms added during the covid-enforced closure, this former village forge has offered “consistently good, high-quality” cuisine for more than 20 years under the ownership of former Savoy chef Danny Jimminson and his wife Sandra. It’s a “relaxed, really enjoyable” venue, with a range of menus from two to seven courses.

With its oak beams and flagstone floors, this family-run rural gastropub between Leicester and Lutterworth continues to win a solid thumbs up from Midlands-based reporters in our annual diners’ poll. The fairly traditional, bistro-style cooking (e.g. chicken liver parfait, steak or seabass, panna cotta) is in a more ambitious mould than typical pub grub.