Bar Review Veritas Ale & Wine Bar
Simon O'Hare enjoys a couple of after-work pints at Leeds' newest pub
Bar Review: Veritas Ale & Wine Bar
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Real ale is in fashion. Five words you probably wouldn’t have read 10 years ago, but Veritas, the new pub-style bar situated on a corner of Great George Street, provides perfect evidence of the beer resurgence, at least if our recent visit is anything to go by. Because when we call in – admittedly it’s a Friday at the end of a working day, when any city centre bar should be busy – the place is filled with more punters than we remember seeing in the venue’s former life as The Waterhole.
Remember The Waterhole? It actually served some fairly tasty French food and wine, and the décor wasn’t dramatically different to how it looks now. But it wasn’t well known for its beers. Which is certainly not the case with Veritas: the range of cask ales is excellent, with an especially good spread of local ales. There is also a decent sized wine list and a hearty looking food menu. And the crowd in the bar on this Friday night are an impressively diverse bunch. A couple of young women are drinking rose, a few young men are on the real ales, while at the next table some more mature chaps with beards – what you might call the traditional real ale audience – are happily supping their well-earned beers.
A pint of Mary Jane (£2.80) from Ilkley Brewery is a fresh, hoppy treat that livens up the palate, a lovely beer, perfect for easing into the weekend. A contrasting pint of Black Tom Mild (£2.50) from Wharfebank is a reminder of the easy drinking enjoyment that mild can provide. The colour of jet black boots, you’d expect this to be a big, sticky giant of a beer, but this is mild, so it’s lighter in the mouth, yet still delivers those slightly toasty, Bisto-ey, nutty flavours.
So the early signs are good for this, the latest addition to the Market Town Taverns stable. Our only minor qualm would be that our bartender was unable to give us more information about one of our beers when we enquired at the bar – but perhaps we should give the benefit of the doubt, as it was a fairly busy Friday night just a couple of weeks after the bar had opened for business.
Beer drinkers now have an enticing choice of real ale venues in this part of town, where the likes of The Victoria, Foley’s, Shopkeepers and the Town Hall Tavern all lurk temptingly within walking distance.
Posted on Wednesday 27th October 2010
Veritas
43 Great George Street, Leeds, LS1 3BB
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Comment by Foodstar 007
Posted on Sun 13th Feb 11 6:57 pm
Terrible place.
We went to Veritas for some food on a Sunday afternoon. We were greeted politely by staff and given menus at 15.55, and the waiter indicated which food menus they were serving that afternoon. The menu looked nice and the range of ales was good. We went to the bar to order a few minutes later. Our drinks were poured and we then said we’d chosen our food. We were told “kitchen closed at 4.” The time was then 16.01. The staff seemed totally disinterested, barely making eye contact. The word “sorry” was definitely an afterthought. When questioned on their poor customer service, the excuse was it was a “breakdown in communication”; nothing to do with customer service. We had to walk out, leaving our drinks on the bar. We were outside by 16.03. This example of how not to treat paying customers left a very bitter taste in our mouths. We will not be visiting again, and advising others of more customer friendly restaurants in future.
