Restaurant review: Stone Trough, Harrogate Road, Leeds

I must have driven past this place about a dozen times before I finally decided to pull in and give it a go and overall, I'm glad I did.

It’s a chain pub, under the Sizzling banner, so you’ll find lots of offers (two steaks and a bottle of wine for £20 doesn’t sound bad to me).

The Stone Trough is just off the main Harrogate Road as you travel from Rawdon toward Yeadon and stands imposingly over the various approaches. It has its own car park too, a small mercy in today’s world.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It was busy when we visited (Sunday, about 1pm, so what did I expect?) but we managed to find a table over in a corner and purloin a couple of chairs from elsewhere.

There’s nothing remarkable about the interior but then again, it’s well kept and clean and functional and the atmosphere is nice and relaxed and there’s an air of efficiency about the staff, who gave us a good welcome.

My dining partner went for the all day breakfast (£7.49), while I ordered the Sunday roast chicken (£6.99), while the children had kids spare ribs and chicken nuggets (£2.99 each).

Three of these dishes came within about 10 to 15 minutes, which was very good considering just how busy it was in there (I think we took the last seats when we entered), however, for some reason the chef missed my dish off the order and so I had to wait about another quarter of an hour before my Sunday roast chicken arrived.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

When it did finally come, along with a profuse and profound apology (which I accepted), it was very nice and I’ll even go so far as to say it was worth the wait. I was assured by the staff it was an honest mistake and they even offered to buy me a drink to make up for the error, which is something I would have taken them up on had I not already consumed one pint of Sharpe’s Doom Bar.

The rest of the food was as you’d expect from a chain pub. Nothing here that shouts gastro-pub but who wants fancy fine dining food all the time anyway? This is a decent pub serving quite passable, honest-as-you-like it grub from the ‘pub favourites’ menu. It’s all piping hot and there’s plenty of it. The ribs, in particularly, were a delight (duty alone made me pinch one from my son’s plate, you understand).

All told the final bill rolled in at a not inexpensive £27.56, which is more than reasonable for four people and reason enough to make a return visit (which I’m sure we will at some point).

What endears a place like this is how they react to and deal with mistakes and I have to say the service was faultless and that’s something a lot of places struggle to get right.

Related topics: