Saltaire

The Shipley Slouch

September 30, 2012
The Shipley Slouch, Kirkgate Community Centre, Shipley

Sundays are meant to be slow. They’re supposed to be lazy, a small chance to rest after the trials and triumphs of the week gone and to prepare for those to come. I start Sunday with a lot of coffee, a pile of maple syrup covered pancakes on the kids’ plates and a newspaper, sat [...]

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La Rue, Saltaire

May 7, 2011
La Rue restaurant Saltaire

French? Well, no, not really…more like one of those ‘modern British’ places.  There’s a lot of belly pork, lamb, black pudding and the like, with the odd Mediterranean dish and some Asian flavours here and there, too.  Mainly though, think classic British ingredients and you’ll be close to the mark. It’s been there for years, [...]

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Saltaire restaurant round-up for the Culture Vulture

June 3, 2010
Thumbnail image for Saltaire restaurant round-up for the Culture Vulture

I’ve written a piece about the restaurants and bars in Saltaire for Leeds-based arts and culture blog, The Culture Vulture. This is the first time I’ve written a guest piece for anybody else, and I’m very grateful to Emma at The Culture Vulture for giving me the opportunity in the first place, and even more [...]

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Saltaire Brewery’s Amarillo Gold

May 26, 2010
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Saltaire Brewery have an interesting approach to brewing. They brew lots of different beers.  No, really, lots…. There’s at least twenty-five beers listed on their website at the moment.  Of course, they’re not all in production at the same time, but it shows that they’re willing to experiment a little and try things out.   That’s [...]

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Alex James’ Blue Monday cheese

January 24, 2010
Alex James' Blue Monday cheese

Alex James is an unlikely cheese maker. As Blur’s bass player, James claims to have drunk a million pounds worth of champagne in three years, whilst contributing to some of the most innovative and  enduring records of the last twenty years, both of which I suppose are significant achievements, just in very different ways. All [...]

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The Boathouse Inn, Saltaire

November 27, 2009
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The Boathouse used to be one of those slightly tatty, worn-out pubs that had seen much better days. It was just underwhelming, in direct contrast to it’s superb position on the riverbank. The previous owners didn’t seem to have much clue about how to run the place, either.  A few years ago, on the final [...]

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The Old Tramshed, Saltaire

October 17, 2009
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We’d planned to eat at The Boathouse, a newly renovated pub/restaurant on the river at the bottom of Saltaire village.  It’s a slick and modern looking place which inexplicably stops serving food at 8pm despite having a large dining room, doesn’t run a reservations system and was packed by the time we arrived. It soon [...]

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Salt’s Diner, Saltaire

May 31, 2009
Salt's Diner, Salt's Mill, Saltaire

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution gave birth to Blake’s “dark, Satanic mills”, huge cathedrals of commerce producing cotton, wool, alpaca. Conditions in the mills were harsh – the workers started young and the hours were long, the work dangerous. The mills of the North were places to be feared, [...]

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