The Town Hall Tavern, Leeds

 

© Copyright Bill Henderson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

It was the perfect storm.

Nearby beer festival + a rained-off game at Headingly + business lunches = a very, very noisy pub.

The noisy pub in question was the Town Hall Tavern on Leeds’ Headrow, which describes itself as an eclectic gastropub. I couldn’t imagine what they meant by this, so I took a trip to Leeds to find out.

 

Despite the noise, I decided to go for the non-eclectic crunchy East Coast haddock, dripping cooked chips, tartare sauce and crushed peas at £9.95.

 

The meal came on a plate. Unfortunately the plate had a piece of ‘newspaper’ on it called ‘The Daily Catch’ which actually stated to fall apart because of the combined weakening effect of the heat of the fish and the oil from the batter. What utter nonsense!

The fish was an OK chunk with the skin off and the batter was light, with good colour, plenty of flavour and it had been really well cooked. The chips had good taste and texture and a great mid-brown colour.

 

The peas were of the petit pois variety and had quite a soft, slightly buttery flavour.

Then the tartare disaster. It looked good with a bright mayo and well-chopped pieces of veg. However, once tasted it quickly became very clear that one of those vegetables was cucumber. And I hate cucumber. Cucumber is tartare? Not on my watch.

 

The chunk of lemon was full of pips and it was a genuine struggle to get any of the juice out. The salt cellar didn’t actually crush the salt, rather it just dispensed whole crystals from the cellar onto the chips. The vinegar was a slightly indulgent, and unnecessary, Aspall Golden Malt Vinegar.

 

Although the staff were charming, it was difficult to enjoy the meal in such a noisy, claustrophobic pub and I wouldn’t do it again. After the meal we headed to the wonderful Friends of Ham, which was blissful by comparison – but they don’t do fish and chips!