Milk and Honey opens in Leeds as city's first dedicated Portuguese cafe

Chocolate and carrot cake is a traditional Portuguese dessert on the menu at Milk & Honey in Meanwood.

Milk & Honey Café is a community café inspired by the biblical ‘land of milk and honey’ and the idea of being a place of abundance where good things happen to people.

So Milk & Honey is bringing Portuguese custard tarts, pastries filled with meat and huge cakes to the foodies of Meanwood.

It is the brainchild of friends Maria Tavaras and Maria Tati who met at a local church group in the city and bonded over their love of Portuguese food and drink. They also found that Leeds has a large Portuguese and West African community which isn’t currently catered for in the city, so they decided to create a café that offered traditional recipes everyone can enjoy.

Rissois is a Portuguese pastry dish filled with meat or fish.

Both women have lived in Leeds for many years and have experience in the food and drink industry running a local catering business both in the UK and back home in Portugal.

Milk & Honey is serving up traditional Portuguese dishes including peri-peri chicken, bitoque (grilled steak and fried eggs), bifana from Lisbon (pork loin in a peri peri sauce), rissois a small traditional fried pastry stuffed with meat, chicken or tuna. It also serves sandwiches and traditional English (and Portuguese) breakfasts.

It imports traditional pastel de nata (Portuguese custard tart) direct from Portugal which is served with Portuguese coffee and regularly has a changing array of cakes including coconut cake, orange cake and caramel tea flan.

Maria Tavaras, co-owner of Milk & Honey said: “Traditional Portuguese food is a fusion of southern Spanish and West African flavours that is so much more than peri peri chicken. We wanted to create a café that celebrated the best of Portuguese cooking delivered in a community-focused environment where people can connect with each other over a coffee and pastel de nata.

“We have had such wonderful support from the community in Meanwood and we’re attracting people from all over the city who want to experience traditional Portuguese dishes.”

Milk & Honey is planning to hold events in the coming months including dinners inspired from the different regions of Portugal and dress up afternoon teas.

It is open six days a week from Monday-Saturday for breakfast, lunch and dinner along with a range of traditional cakes.