Food Review The Bowery
Tom Goodhand enjoys a truly artistic cafe
Food Review: The Bowery
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Headingley is considered by some to be nothing more than a student hellhole full of pubs churning out cheap lager to Otley runners. While there is certainly an element of that (one only has to wander down Otley Road after 9pm on a weekend to be surrounded by sumo wrestlers, GI Joe’s, nurses, doctors and devils), there is much more to this thriving part of LS6 than drinks offers and fancy dress.
The Bowery is one such example of the delights that Headingley can offer. A mere 100m from the massive Arndale Centre, this gallery/art space/cafe offers up cultural delights alongside quality sandwiches, salads and cakes. It’s a long way from the horrors of costumes and cheap booze.
We head down on a Saturday afternoon to sample the delights that the cafe has to offer, and to admire the art in their upstairs gallery. As you enter the crisp, white space - all plain walls and pine to allow the artwork scattered around to shine - you first hit a small shop space selling handmade craft goods (we particularly like the Lego cufflinks), before getting to the cafe bar.
The menu is simple and pleasingly ethical, with a focus of locally sourced, organic, Fairtrade goods, meaning you can eat guilt free. While we consider the options of soups, salads and quiches (not to mention the breakfast choices of croissants or beans on toast), we both opt to go for one of their specialist seasonal sandwiches alongside a couple of Americanos (£1.65-£1.85).
Settling down on one of the cafes comfortable banquettes, we have the option of the newspapers to look over, a good selection of art books to gawp at, or, if you’re there on your own, a computer to use if you have any urgent emails that need attending to. Being a Saturday, we get a few of the newspaper supplements out and wait for our sandwiches (which are being freshly prepared) to come over.
Both are very impressive on fresh, soft seeded rolls. I take Yorkshire ham, stilton and homemade chutney (£3.90) while my partner grabs a Wendsleydale and homemade apricot jam sandwich (£3.60). The making of any sandwich is the quality of its ingredients, and it’s clearly something that The Bowery take a lot of care over. The coffee’s pretty stupendous too, they’re not skimping on beans and it packs the kind of punch that you need early on a Saturday.
Since the cafe also boasts homemade cakes, it seems rude not to try some of the bread cakes (from £1.50), so we did. Moist, and not too sweet with a great crunchy brown sugar topping, it was a fine way to finish off the meal.
And what better way to digest your meal than with a stroll around a gallery admiring the art? A trip upstairs brings you to an artists’ work space (which offers space for hire, as well as classes) and then a surprisingly well sized gallery full of work from local artists.
If there’s a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon, we’d love to hear about it.
Posted on Wednesday 11th November 2009
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