Bengal Brasserie review: I tried the new branch of this beloved, family-run Leeds Indian restaurant chain

The new site for the Bengal Brasserie brand opened on the corner of Stainbeck Avenue in Moortown over the weekend with an act of particular generosity; as free meals were offered to regulars from other sites and new faces in the local area.

This new branch of the family-run business will be overseen by Jahead Ahmed, who follows in the footsteps of his dad Mohan Miah, who started the business in the 1990s, and his brother Shaq.

And those familiar with the delights of their sites in Burley, the Merrion Centre and Wetherby will be happy to know that their penchant for delicious food and a livewire atmosphere appear to have remained intact; though a few teething issues may have to be addressed.

We arrived on a dreary, Tuesday evening and were seated in one of the booths among the deep green themed, “bougie” décor, which was handled by Jahead and offers a more moody alternative.

We were seen to by Jahead and a roving cast of other friendly staff, for which there was around one for each table in use, and were instantly made at home with a pint of deliciously fresh Cobra from the newly installed taps.

Upon browsing the menus we were treated to what instantly set the restaurant apart during my first visit in Burley - the poppadoms and pickle tray. The freshness and tastiness of each of the five condiments instantly draws you in to the evening and is something my guests were equally blown away by.

The night went at an easy but somewhat jagged pace as the family patriarch Mohan kept a watchful eye on things as he manoeuvred around the room.

Fortunately the food only got better though. For starters we indulged in an onion bhaji each - which were suitably crispy-yet-soft - and a plate of sizzling chicken tikka on a bed of charred onions, which tasted just as delightful as our noses, eyes and ears had hoped.

The mains then arrived to impose on our already-beer-and-food-filled stomachs, but after tucking in that felt long forgotten.

I went for one of the new dishes introduced by Jahead, the Moynas Deshi Red Curry; which was a beautiful, creamy mixture of red thai curry and Bengali flavours that enticed you back with every bite.

We also went for a chicken roshni - another new dish - which combined barbecued meat and tomato, garlic flavour that was rich in just the right way.

If you’d like to receive more stories like this and the latest news from the Yorkshire Evening Post, click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.

And then there was the beautifully subtle and creamy lamb tikka for our less Indian food-inclined pal, who found it to be the ultimate entry level dish.

After eating what we could with the puffy garlic naan and tangy garlic rice (another eye-opening new discovery), we took what we couldn’t finish (which was a fair old bit) and departed with handshakes, handwipes and a complimentary shot of limoncello.

And while our experience was as good as we could have hoped, we only hope that the new restaurant can find its feet so that the Moortown locale take the Bengal Brasserie boys to their hearts as much as they have been elsewhere.

Factfile

Address: 221 Stainbeck Road , Moortown, UK, LS7 2LR

Telephone: 0113 819 8595

Opening hours: Mon-Sat, 5pm - 11pm; Sun, 2pm - 11pm

Website: https://www.bengal-brasserie.com/leeds-moortown

Scores

Food: 9/10

Value: 8/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Service: 8/10