Galleria Leeds: Meet one of the masterminds behind the new restaurant at Armley's music venue Project House

Project House opened its doors in July 2023, hosting a range of concerts, markets and events at its venue. The 1,000 capacity space is a collaboration between Leeds veterans Brudenell Social Club, Belgrave Music Hall, Super Friendz and Welcome Skate Store.

Ahead of a number of big names performing at the cultural project, including Wigan indie band The Lathums and Wu-Tang Clan legend GZA, Project House has launched its new restaurant, Galleria, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Armley Road venue.

Project House and Galleria co-founder Simon Stevens told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “It was always the intention that we were going to open a kind of cafe/bar along with the event space. It has just taken us six months to get around to actually getting the thing open, for a number of reasons, but we’re finally here.”

The wood-fire grill serves a range of meals such as flatbreads and chicken, with a number of sides and dips, along with breakfast and lunch from Thursday to Sunday.

Simon said: “We were conscious of the fact that we are an event space, gig venue, so we’re going to have a lot of passing trade from people attending the events and shows down here. So the food needs to be accessible enough for a bit of casual passing trade.

“But we also needed it to be amazing enough to attract people to Armley, not just Armley, but the outskirts, and to draw people out of town.”

The kitchen is steered by two icons of the Leeds food and drink scene. They are head chef Andy Castle, previously of Ox Club, while the front of house team is led by Chris Allsop, formerly of popular city centre gastropub The Reliance.

Simon added: “They’ve come up with an amazing menu that ticked all the boxes. An incredible evening menu with wood-fried chicken, flatbreads, and a daytime menu as well with classic brunch items.

“One of the things that drove us to open a restaurant now is [we] kind of perceived it as a lack of new openings in Leeds, stuff that we wanted to see. When we opened Belgrave Music Hall ten years ago where were all these new openings in Leeds. 

“Every other week there was a new exciting restaurant or there was a street food pop up or there was something else happening, and it's definitely changed now. You still get a few openings, and I know things have been popping up but it doesn't feel like that independence is quite strong anymore.”

Galleria is open now in Project House on Armley Road, serving breakfast and lunch Thursdays to Sundays and dinner on Thursdays and Saturdays.