Psycho Sandbar Leeds: Michael O’Hare on ‘class’ two weeks as his new Vicar Lane restaurant opens its doors

Psycho Sandbar held an exclusive launch event on March 2, with guests including Gary Neville, before opening to the public for full service last weekend.

It comes more than two months after the closure of the Man Behind The Curtain, which was renovated and rebranded into the new surf-shack-themed restaurant. Psycho Sandbar has introduced an a la carte menu, giving Michael and his team more flexibility in the kitchen and guests more choice.

“It’s been absolutely class,” Michael told the Yorkshire Evening Post. “With the current climate, you never know if you’re doing the right thing. Closing the restaurant for nearly three months, I’ll be honest, it was scary. There’s a lot of pressure on that.

“But we got there, the restaurant looks amazing, it feels amazing - the food is at a really good starting point. It’s as good as when we closed the Man Behind The Curtain, but there’s so much further it can go.

“It feels like an exciting way of cooking - and it’s f****** delicious, which is mint. I’m stoked with it.”

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The fish-heavy a la carte menu includes five oyster dishes, a selection of small plates and Kuzu dumplings served with beef, tuna belly or sea urchin.

The larger fish courses include line-caught turbot which is cooked on the bone, served with lychee and horseradish ketchup, and the John Dory steamed in kombu and lobster knuckle laksa.

“The vast majority of the dishes are new and the style is better,” Michael added. “Because we’re charging a la carte prices, rather than a big block of tasting menu throughout, we’re able to cook with much nicer ingredients and more frequently.

“It’s an absolute pleasure, we’ve made three menu changes in a week because of ingredients we can get in. It’s nice to have that better relationship with our fishmonger - and to have a less robotic kitchen. It just feels right."

“For the last year or so, I felt a lot of places at a certain level were becoming quite homogeneous. It felt like the same restaurant repeated here, there and everywhere. We’ve got something that’s unique now, that’s avant garde, high end, but accessible and it’s a great place to be. It’s honest, top-level cooking.

“Irrespective of where we’re at in the world, it feels like I’ve got a restaurant that’s unlike any other - which is a nice thing to say again.”