Ramen, rabbit, rum-on-toast, and more things you should be eating this month

Whether it's seasonal specials, must-trys from new restaurants, or fleeting street food, these are the five dishes you have to try this July.

Pina Colada French Toast, Ox Club

Proving there’s more to early morning boozing than just Bloody Marys, Ox Club’s new brunch menu takes inspiration from everybody’s favourite flamboyant cocktail, the pina colada. Brioche french toast is fried with coconut, topped with pineapple from the grill, and then whipped rum butter. Well worth the funny looks you’ll get when people smell the rum on your breath at midday.

The rest of the new brunch dishes are well worth investigating, too, including curried potatoes with baked eggs, espresso-infused ham hock benedict, and a weekly rotation of pancakes (and don’t worry they haven’t completely abandoned the Bloody Mary)

Ox Club, Headrow House, 19a The Headrow, LS1 6PU

Tonkotsu Ramen, Issho

Following extensive and tireless research (and a lot of broth-flecked shirts) we’ve finally determined the best places to get ramen in Leeds, and this effort from Issho came out tops.

Gaze into the pool of broth, made milky-white by simmering pork bones for 48 hours; marvel at the geometric perfection of the slices of roast pork; sigh with relief at the fact that somebody has finally managed to not overcook the egg until it’s the density of a golfball. This is kind of ramen we’ve been waiting for in Leeds ever since we first saw our friend post a photo from Bone Daddies in 2013.

Issho, 3rd Floor Rooftop, Victoria Gate, LS2 7AU

Rabbit in the Wood, HOME

While the “Glorious Twelfth” signalled the beginning of grouse season, the questionable practices involved in cultivating and hunting the bird are causing it to have a bit of a moment in terms of ethical and responsible sourcing. In a few years it’ll only be socially acceptable to order it in the suppressed tone usually reserved for foie gras, or when your Mum has to say “sex” in a sentence.

Luckily though, peppering a rabbit’s frontal lobe with shotgun pellets is still fair game - more than that, in fact, it’s essential to sustaining the delicate ecosystem of the British countryside, such as that of Harewood House, where HOME sources a lot of its produce. Rabbit in the Woods is one of the star dishes from the restaurant’s September tasting menu, and features smart and resourceful use of the whole animal in various components of the dish including loin, rabbit stew, and even rabbit pancetta along with black garlic and parsnip.

HOME, 16-17 Kirkgate, LS1 6BY

Sourdough Pizza, Water Lane Boathouse

It wouldn’t seem right to break into verbose hyperbole to talk about WLB’s sourdough margherita is - it’s the simplicity of dough, salt, charred bits, san marzano tomato, and mozzarella that makes it so appealing. All I’ll say is that it’s probably time to update our roundup of Leeds’ top 5 pizzas…

Water Lane Boathouse, Canal Wharf, LS11 5PS

Cherry Blossom

Who’d have thought a Chinese fine dining restaurant would be a contender for dessert of the year? Order this and you’ll be presented with aglass cone of cherry flavoured angel delight topped with a dark chocolate allotment - a layer of soil and some gnarly branches of the stuff, suspending a cloud of cherry flavoured candy floss. All of this spluttering great clouds of cherry-scented dry ice across the table. It’s an attention-seeking Screwball, but it’s compeltely brilliant. Tattu doesn’t do things by half measures, and like everything else we tried in our review visit, you just have to not overthink it and let it immerse you.

Tattu, Minerva House, 29 East Parade, Leeds LS1 5PS

"Essentially a boujee screwball" - look out for our review of Tattu, including this Cherry Blossom dessert, on the site tomorrow
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