Sowerby Bridge Restaurant Guide

“Gosh, that was good!!” – Mark Kemp’s “relaxed small plates restaurant in Sowerby Bridge” (a converted boozer) excites nothing but full-on raves from reporters for its “welcoming environment” and “refreshing”, “unfailingly impressive” food at “incredible value prices”. One brave Lancastrian who “put his armour on and risked a trip to Yorkshire to sneak in a Wednesday lunch” only wishes his own county had somewhere like this – an unusual outfit which offers “randomly eclectic, tapas-y food taking in Spain, Yorkshire and Southeast Asia”. “Service is just how you want it” too – “never intrusive but at your elbow when you do”. Top Menu Tip – “Cauliflower and manchego croquetas were merely a foil to an eye-opening Worcestershire sauce caramel; Bahn me prawn toasts are a really superb dish; Moroccan spiced lamb is pulled and comes with pillowy maneesh bread, a rather heavy hummus, dee-licous giant couscous, lightly pickled onions and other stuff. Best posh kebab I’ve had in a long time”.

Well known as “a gorgeous getaway spot” ten minutes’ drive from Halifax, this old corn mill has served as a “warm and cosy” inn for more than a century, with a “lovely restaurant” that offers a “good range” of modern British dishes “cooked to a high standard” (available in either tasting or à la carte formats, plus sandwiches at lunchtime). There are 11 “beautiful rooms upstairs” for overnight stays.

2024 Review: Chef-patron Eric Paxman trained under Marco Pierre White in London and Bill Granger in Australia, and has cooked for luminaries including Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vowed ‘I’ll be back’ – a sentiment shared by numerous guests at the venture he opened in his hometown 14 years ago. “Lunch and early-bird evening specials are an exceptional bargain”.

2024 Review: “An airy space with unusual dishes and great cooking” – this comfortable independent opposite the civic hall scored highly in this year’s annual diners’ poll. The focus is on small plates, some of them very original: who’s for ‘honey, soy and gochujang roast carrots, toasted sesame, with tahini satay’?

“Superb, homemade Indian food” is the hallmark of this vast, 500-cover curry house, founded by Mumtaz Khan as a tiny Kashmiri shop in 1979 and now a Yorkshire institution with a branch in Leeds and national brands of ready meals and halal babyfood! – “there are a number of good Indian restaurants in Bradford but this is different”, and “the decor makes it suitable to entertain guests”. Top Menu Tip – look out for the ‘Mumtaz Differently’ dishes, playful takes on pasta, lasagne and doner kebabs.

“If you want to know how the best Pakistani curries taste, come to Akbar’s” – a “fun and buzzy” spot that, according to one local reporter, is “the curry house I always tip to visitors” (“the authentic section of the menu is full of the most incredible flavours”). Charismatic founder Shabir Hussain (known to friends and admirers as ‘Bash’, ‘the King of Curry’) sadly died in 2024; his funeral attracted 5,000 mourners. He started out with a 28-seat canteen, which he expanded over three decades into a group of 10 venues from Birmingham to Glasgow.

2023 Review: 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.

2023 Review: “A popular local staple for many years”, this posh and hugely successful pub has been run by the Truelove family since 1968 and – much extended over the years – is known for its “consistently good food and service, with a great atmosphere”. Supporters reckon it is currently “back on form and, though expensive, a great meal is guaranteed (potted shrimps and shellfish superb!)”. A contrary view is that “the dining room decor is in a time warp, with no hint of frivolity to brighten the dullness”, while the “surprisingly long menu could do with being edited”, and the dishes arrive in “generous portions, but lack finesse”.

2024 Review: A “great fit-out” of a former bank has resulted in this very cool destination, run by two alumni of the Moorcock Inn at Sowerby Bridge. It’s “a lovely place to while away a couple of hours” (in the company of your canine if you like), where the concise menu revolves around punchy and “great small plates, including charcuterie and cheese” and there’s “a dependable wine list too”.

“Great Yorkshire-Italian cuisine” from York-born Poppy Cartwright: a former fashion designer who was inspired to cook by her Sicilian grandmother and launched a home-based supper club with her husband, Matthew Shelton. Now in a former Victorian butchers shop, they serve a set five-course meal (with vegetarian options) on Friday and Saturday nights, using their own hand-made bowls and plates (they also host cooking and art classes on the premises).

The second pizza project from couple Kate & Jim Morgan, whose previous venture, Rudy’s Pizza in Manchester, became such a runaway success that the duo sold it to hospitality giants Mission Mars in 2017 (albeit remaining on as stakeholders as it has spiralled into a nationwide chain). As per its famous predecessor, the order of the day is “perfect pizza” of Neapolitan bent, cooked for just sixty seconds to achieve a perfectly blistered crust – “but don’t skimp on the starters”, which might include arancini and deep-fried olives with house sausage.

On the ground floor of the city’s stunning, Gothic Revival Town Hall, this all-day restaurant (breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea, dinner) offers a menu of hearty, traditional Lancashire dishes listed as ‘Rochdale Town Hall Classics’ (e.g. Black pudding scotch egg, Braised steak and ale pie). No reports as yet, but in his November 2024 review The Observer’s Jay Rayner was left “slack-jawed” by the architecture and impressed by a civic amenity delivered with a combination of professionalism, good sense, taste and skill (“every town should have one”). Reports please!

“Just amazing!” – “service here is second to none” and “the food is just something else, with chefs who know how to mix good local ingredients to create really special dishes”. Oliver Roberts (ex-Shibden Mill FOH) opened this “little local bistro” in a village near Huddersfield in late 2023, and has gathered admirers ever since – among them Bruce Springsteen, who dropped in for dinner last May with Stephen Graham, the Lancashire-born actor who plays his father in the recent biopic ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’. Top Menu Tip – Isle of Wight tomatoes with wild garlic ice cream, invented by chef Louis Bamford and described by Stephen Graham as “mad Merlin stuff”.