The Man Behind The Curtain, Leeds - restaurant review

There is nothing that should work about today’s restaurant. Not. A. Thing. Restaurant consultants would be ripping their hair out by the roots. There’s the, um, idiosyncratic name. And the location, formerly home to Leeds’ last great fayn daynin’ hope, Anthony Flinn, above a posh clothes shop. A clipboarded chap points you to the lift through the rails of McQueen and Moschino; you exit into a long, echoey room tricked up to look like a cross between edgy gallery and 50s frat house. Someone has gone mad with the graffiti.



Then there’s chef/owner, Michael O’Hare, who looks more like an escapee from Mötley Crüe than a chap whose cerebral, risk-taking approach to food is making the city’s burghers gasp and stretch their eyes. And the food? Bonkers. Engagingly bonkers. Much of it defies logic: smoked mackerel parfait dusted with chocolatey roasted coffee powder, shaped into bonbons and served in a decorative cup full of coffee beans. A pudding that features butternut squash, a rubble of walnut and a slick of vivid, emerald chive oil. Sweetbreads, creamy inside and almost KFC-crisp out, come with radishes cooked in pomegranate molasses until fondant-soft and caramelly, their peppery leaves adding welcome sting. But, mostly, O’Hare pulls it off.

Presentation is equally outré. Those sweetbreads arrive on a ceramic tree trunk section. A flawless, almost spoonable pork jowl comes crusted with what look like shimmering flakes of coal shale: these “cinders” are dehydrated squid ink, at a guess, jet-black and served on an equally dark plate with the queasy sheen of spilt car oil. This is presentation as statement, as gothic as Siouxsie Sioux on a day trip to Whitby – fortunately the pork-seafood pairing is brilliant.


I’ve had O’Hare in the crosshairs since his Blind Swine in York, where he did a spot of épater-ing le bourgeois with a chaotic, Noma-referencing rock’n’roll shtick. In his move to Leeds, he appears to have moved westwards in influence, too, to Spain. The “look” (wiggly, silver branches carrying spoons of a cold and fragrant scallop and chorizo oil broth with nutty little grains) can be very Arzak; flavour shockers (that chive oil on dessert) are a bit Mugaritz; and riffs on junk food (“doughnuts” made with white chocolate and freeze-dried, berry-coated foie gras) have about them shades of Tickets in Barcelona. But that’s not to say it’s derivative; if anything, it’s sui generis.

Look, I could go on. There are so many little dishes, each with at least one element that surprises or jolts: puree of local black pudding jostling with something that tastes like liquidised, super-sharp lemon meringue pie; potsticker dumpling of minced chicken and blackcurrant served with rosy tuna; slab of sirloin as silky as kobe… I could drone on about the wine pairing, too, served in quantities so northern-generous, I worry I’m hallucinating acid-hued toilet roll in the lavs. (I’m not.)

As with any multi-dish menu, there are items that jar, and they haven’t quite worked out the pacing and slick timing essential to this kind of meal – there are a couple of real longueurs causing us to play “What’s the worst band/musician?”, probably nudged by a soundtrack belching out bloody Thin Lizzy. Fortunately, manager and sommelier Charlotte Rasburn (ex of The Box Tree in Ilkley) is on hand, in dark suit and gold spiked heels, to fill the gaps. And the glasses. Hic. But if a chef can put a silky foam of potato laced with puffed wild rice on top of an elaborate chocolate dessert and have you laughing out loud as you fight over it (turns out it’s scented like a salt and vinegar crisp), he’s doing something very right.

That name? It’s a line from The Wizard Of Oz, as in “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”, which sounds like a bit of a pop at the cult of the celebrity chef. I like it: the restaurant features the same manic creativity as L Frank Baum’s story. O’Hare, however, stays firmly behind his own curtain all evening, and we catch only a glimpse of him right at the end, silver-booted and aproned. He’s very self-effacing for a rock god whose gravity-defying coiffure seems to have morphed from the Vince Neil platinum blond of his website to Cher-ish ebony. But never mind the barnet, one thing’s for sure: he’s got bollocks of purest steel.

• The Man Behind The Curtain 68-78 Vicar Lane, Leeds, 0113 243 2376. Open lunch Fri & Sat, 12.30-4pm, dinner Weds-Sat, 6.30-9.30pm. £65 a head for daily 12-course degustation menu, plus drinks and service.

Food 5/10-9/10, depending on the dish
Atmosphere 5/10 daytime; 8/10 night
Value for money Food 8/10; wine 9/10