My last lunch of 2025 was a banger at The Highland Laddie in Leeds, the winner of Good Food Guide’s 2025 pub of the year. The Laddie opened last spring in a tucked away spot in Burley and lovingly restored a classic local old school boozer. It is owned/run by the couple behind the popular Empire Cafe in Leeds (which focuses on rotisserie chicken and small plates).
I visited The Laddie last autumn and it was truly excellent, though I didn’t get round to writing a report, nor did I take any photos.
The beer here is carefully selected and well looked after. The small bar area retains a classic local pub feel and alongside the booze offers a short bar menu and a choice of oysters.
The dining room is compact and cosy with small tables and a log fire.
Service is relaxed but informed and smoothly run. The menu opens with some snacks, before an extensive list of plates ranging from smaller sized dishes to larger ones and priced accordingly.
Sharing is definitely the way to go here as there are so many excellent dishes it’s worth trying as many as possible.
The menu retains some of the core dishes whilst a lot are regularly changed. Some of the core plates include half a pint of crevettes with Marie rose sauce, sausage roll, ham with bread rolls and butter, steak, vindaloo devilled eggs, schnitzel with anchovies, keema shepherds pie.
The kitchen utilities an open wood-fired grill and ‘oven’ and this method of cooking forms the backbone of many dishes, including their signature ham dish.
Vindaloo devilled eggs (or half of it!):
Black pudding and sausage meat faggot with trotter gravy was delicious, well seasoned with a strong unami hit.
Crab meat crumpet is served with a beautiful hollandaise and was one of those dishes that I just want to inhale. I think this was marginally my favourite of the lunch, though the competition was fierce.
Ham from the fire is a quality ham with 2 fantastically soft homemade batch rolls and butter. This is accompanied by your choice of mustard(s) from a separate10-strong menu of mustards.
The Highland beef burger was probably the juiciest burger I’ve ever had. I wish I had got a photo of it sliced in half to illustrate this but you’ll just have to take my word for it. The burger was cooked med-rare and certainly wouldn’t have wanted any more cooking than this. It’s been ages since I had a burger with a proper pink interior. The burger was topped with ‘clotted cheese’ which is apparently Red Leicester melted into cream cheese and clotted cream, formed into pucks then chilled to solidify before being later steamed onto the burger. The bun was spot on. My only slight wish was that this was served with some gherkin or even a bit of red sauce, as for me the acidity would have been welcome, though my dining partner disagreed on this and for him it was his standout dish of the lunch.
The steak is sold as 1" or 2" and is a sirloin cut with a bit of bone in. The 2" was unavailable so we went for the 1" and ordered it med-rare. It arrived perfectly cooked and the wood fire was evident in a deep smokey flavour. The seasoning, like everything at Highland Laddie, was absolutely spot on. The steak came with a peppercorn sauce which was fairly light on the peppercorn flavour but was leaning towards a champion gravy, with no shortage of booze and reduced stock propping it up. This was probably the best steak I had in 2025.
Confit duck cassoulet was generous on the duck, perfectly balanced and did not disappoint.
The bill, including a few beers each, was incredibly reasonable for the quality of the food and the cooking.
I neglected to get a photo of the menu but here is someone else’s: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gps-cs-s/AG0ilSzu1e0kX1byyKNHDl9kJbkr-6eAGCbFcrw4VG2bK1BJ3e225tzWK0vlbPn3Gj4TjhHynrPY-Npj_Xsbulf4Deun936JltLX306lLJRblOnNt10Yk8f6YK-84YfmBN7L60t1zSRXPQd6sA6H=s2000
Highland Laddie is a cracking addition to the Leeds food scene and thoroughly deserving of it’s award. Reservations recommended. I’ll certainly be returning soon.
