The Meat Liquor restaurant in Leeds is tucked away around the back of the Trinity Shopping Centre, behind Victoria’s Secret. When you arrive, there is a small, bright bar area on ground level and a restaurant down a set of stairs.
We were there to eat, so we were taken straight downstairs and given a nice booth in a more private area, near the back of the restaurant. There are lots of long tables with benches either side in the centre of the restaurant, and a few other tables for couples and smaller parties.
Once we were seated, our waitress took our drinks order and gave us some menus to look at. We went for a mixture of alcoholic and soft drinks, as it was only lunchtime and some of us had to head back to work in the afternoon!
The menu was short, but filled to the brim with mouth-watering options. With mains like their famous Dead Hippie burger (mustard fried beef patties, special sauce, cheese and salad), and their Buffalo Chicken Burger (deep fried chicken fillet covered in a hot pepper sauce with salad and a blue cheese sauce) this menu is a burger lover’s dream.
If you’re just looking to have a drink or two, then you will be spoilt for choice with the options available. They have beer, cider and wine for those after something more traditional, but they also have a huge selection of cocktails and some alcoholic milkshakes that will blow your socks off.
We went for a selection of different burgers and one rib licker, accompanied by a portion of gravy fries and a portion of chilli cheese fries. The food was brought out on big trays and plates were optional, so that everyone could dig into their burger of choice.
The great thing about Meat Liquor is that the food is messy. Your hands get messy, your face gets messy, and the table gets messy, but at the end of the day, the food tastes so amazing that no one cares. Every table comes with a huge kitchen roll for when you end up covered in sauce or gravy, but that’s really just half the fun.
Everyone polished off their burgers in under five minutes and the chips and gravy went down a treat – Rich even went as far as to lick every remaining scrap of gravy out the bowl once we had finished.
The restaurant is quite dimly lit and it has been decorated with an edgy American twist. There is a DJ booth ready for some evening tunes to get the party started, and the bar is lit up underneath with warm red lighting, giving the whole place the feel of a secret club.
The food gets top marks, though some of our group couldn’t have eaten two burgers in one sitting and there are currently no dessert options. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, and the staff were friendly and helpful. If you haven’t heard about it yet, Meat Liquor also has a 3 Chilli Challenge that Restaurants of Leeds took on last week.