11 Brilliant Brunch Spots in Yorkshire

June 2017

Reading time 5 Minutes

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There’s little that can’t be solved over a good eggs Benedict, no wrongs that can’t be righted with a well-timed flat white, precious little that a perfectly pitched pancake stack won’t fix.

NO 46
46 Market Place, Malton YO17 7LW
01653 699063
It’s rare to find anyone with anything bad to say about No 46: alongside its louche good looks, enthusiastically pro-dog ethos and excellent coffee by Malton roastery Roost, they’ve just started doing stacks of pancakes which manage to be both satisfyingly fat and pillowy and adorably dainty.

SHEARS YARD
11–15 Wharf Street, The Calls, Leeds LS2 7EH 0113 244 4144
www.shearsyard.com
Early adopters of the bottomless boozy brunch craze which swept north about 18 months ago, this bare-bulbs-and-brick hangout from the team behind Art’s Café is as cool as they come. For £25 you get as much drink as you like in 90 minutes (try the English 75, with prosecco, apple and cucumber juice, elderflower and mint) and one of their brunch dishes – our pick is the duck and Jerusalem artichoke hash with French-style black pudding.

MADE BY JONTY
363 Sharrow Vale Road, Sheffield S11 8ZG
07803 082488
www.madebyjonty.co.uk
One of a frankly ludicrous amount of brilliant places on the Sharrow Vale Road miracle mile, the arty, laidback feel here makes it feel like the very marrow of the brunchtime spirit. Even better, they’ve managed to combine all the elements of brunch – bacon, sausage, Emmental cheese, herby omelette – into a bagel. It’s an infinitely dense point of brunchness. It is brunch’s event horizon. There is nothing more brunch.

GREENS VEGETARIAN CAFE
Old Oxford House, Albert Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 8AH
01422 843587
www.greensvegetariancafe.wordpress.com
The joyously cosmopolitan bearing of the menu here is fully suffused with the doing-things-differently ethos of the town. Recent hits like the south Indian mixed vegetable pancakes sit alongside favourites like the mashed avocado and poached egg on toasted focaccia, and rejuvenating fruit juice blends abound too. Round it all off with a cinnamon bun fresh from the oven and you’re sorted.

THIEVING HARRY’S
73 Humber Street, Hull HU1 1TU
01482 214141
www.thievingharrys.co.uk
This intensely cool canteen-style place by the marina is less about some wild reinterpretation of the mechanics of brunch than a careful tweaking of the tangentials. The fried eggs, for instance, come on garlic toast with chorizo and cherry tomatoes, and the scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon are flanked with a lemon, pickled chilli and garlic guac. Understated, but it packs a wallop.

THE PANCAKE HOUSE
1 High Street, Pateley Bridge HG3 5AP
01423 313435
www.facebook.com/The-Pancake-House
As one might imagine, The Pancake House does pancakes. Quelle surprise. These aren’t your kitschy American diner-style pancakes though: they’re altogether more delicate, Parisian things, though the immense breadth of savoury and sweet options mean it’s not about fuddy-duddy traditionalism – the goat’s cheese, sweet chilli jam and rocket pancake particularly appeals.

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HOXTON NORTH
1 Royal Parade, Harrogate HG1 2SZ
www.hoxtonnorth.com
London’s rubbish, as we all know, but they do know how to do brunch: this self-consciously capital-styled place is all matt black outside, wood inside, and stellar stuff like the smoked salmon with crushed avocado, chilli and buttered asparagus on the plates. There’s another branch on Parliament Street, but the one on Royal Parade is our Saturday hangout of choice.

CRANBERRY SWAMP
24 Skinner Street, Whitby YO21 3AJ
01947 228080
www.cranberryswamp.com
The menu here’s appropriately surf-tinged: beyond the usual brunch standbys, there’s kedgeree and crab Benedict, the latter being the best idea anyone in Whitby’s had since Jonathan Harker decided somebody had really better have words with this tiresome Dracula chap.

LAYNES ESPRESSO
16 New Station Street, Leeds LS1 5DL
www.laynesespresso.co.uk
Of late, Middle Eastern flavours have seeped into brunch menus around the county, and Laynes’ shakshuka – spicy arrabbiata sauce, baked egg, dukkah, harissa butter and wedges of sourdough bread – is way up there. Elsewhere,there are buckwheat pancakes, sweetcorn fritters with halloumi and chimichurri, and toasted banana bread with orange mascarpone, candied walnuts and honey.

BLACKER HALL FARM SHOP
Branch Road, Calder Grove, Wakefield WF4 3DN
01924 263849
www.blackerhallfarmshop.co.uk
Getting involved with one of this café’s muffins with Yorkshire-smoked Scottish salmon and wilted baby spinach, or a stack of thick buttermilk pancakes with Yorkshire honey, fruit compôte and Longley Farm yogurt, is essential for a fulfilling weekend morning, and, indeed, a fulfilling life full of joy and high-grade Yorkshire produce. When you think about it, they’re kind of the same thing.

COUCH
412-416 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11 8PJ
0114 268 3513
Sheffield’s stuffed full of great brunch spots – Tamper, Homemade by Thelma’s, Forge Bakehouse – but this is an under-appreciated gem, ideal for slumping in of a Sunday morning. They’ve got all the egg-based classics, granola and pancakes. There’s an extensive range of high-sugar cereals, though if any of your pals attempt that you should make them leave brunch club and sit at a different table. Cereal is NOT BRUNCH.