Sela Restaurant, Leeds

Eating out
Sela Bar Restaurant Leeds

I’m not very good at planning things properly, which is how we ended up at Sela the other night. It was quite accidental.

We’d planned to eat at The Reliance, but found it stuffed to the rafters with Christmas party type people, with a table waiting list that may have stretched into January.  So, we needed a quick alternative, and landed on Sela, a couple of doors down from the brilliant North Bar.

Sela Bar, downstairs, has been around for a while now, but the restaurant upstairs is a new venture.  It’s had some fairly good reviews, and more importantly, they had a table free on a nippy evening.

So, did it live up to the reviews?

Yes.  Sort of.

A couple of the specials weren’t available, which I found out after deciding that I wanted both of them, which was a bit deflating, and then they ran out of Hoegarden…

Anyway, we did get some food, and very good it was too.  I’ve never been able to cook pheasant properly – it always turns out too tough when I do it, but my half a pan fried pheasant was great, really well cooked and presented.  I could have eaten the other half.  A risotto was great too – packed with flavour and cooked exactly like a risotto should be (ie, not to a complete mulch), even if it was a little on the cool side.

Best of all, though – and I make no apologies for this – our bowl of chips was out of this world.  Crisp on the outside, soft in the middle, obviously hand cut.  Proper chips.  Hurray!

I quite enjoyed our meal at Sela.  It’s a nice little place with a short menu that’s well cooked.  On a weekend, I can see it having a real buzz and atmosphere.

Definitely worth a look, especially as North is so close.