19 Apr

Lost & Found

Written By Aaron Cook

Class

Chain restaurants are usually not my bag. Maybe that makes me a snooty asshole. This review
definitely does.
Of course they vary wildly but specifically I’m talking about the high endish ones with the
sanitised imitations of cultural cuisine cloaked in a thin veneer of pseudo trendy interior design.
The ones that desperately advertise 2 for 1 cocktail nights to try and grab a slice of the late night
crowd but are just far enough removed from an actual bar that they never have to deal with the
messy bits at the end of the night. They never interface with the bride to be on her Hen party
having a melt down after her 17th Cosmo because her fiancé hasn’t text back for 30 mins . Or
the beetroot red 50 year old with his brain slowly pickling in a steroid & Stella soup taking his
chemically induced rage out on his poor downtrodden wife. These places are aiming one rung
above that crowd. They have “class”.

They almost all have menus with the vaguest allusions to fine dining but end up offering a safe
collection of anglicised favourites drawn from various culinary staples. If I’m honest I went into
Lost & Found expecting pretty much exactly this and I’m pleased to say I was pleasantly
surprised to be proven wrong.

Lost & Found’s menu isn’t easily pigeonholed. If I had to describe it in one sentence I’d say
French bistro by way of a steakhouse, with a hefty dollop of middle eastern sensibility thrown
over top.

Normally when a menu is as eclectic as this its a signal that the restaurant has no true identity,
no idea what it wants to serve. Eclectic menus put me in mind of “Frankie & Bennies”. We do
pizza, pasta, burgers, chicken, burritos, turkey dinosaurs and anything else you can think of in
the worst way possible. “Want some microwaved Lasagne? Of course you do, you monosyllabic
cretin, pull up a chair!”
Style
To Lost & Found’s credit they are very definitely not that. They had already built some good will
with us in the past. We had been pleasantly surprised by their steak night menu which offers a
reasonably high quality steak, cooked reasonably well for a reasonable price. The key word
being reasonable. Not exactly a word that sets the foodie blogosphere on fire but if I’m honest if
you are after a steak in Leeds you could do a lot worse.

On Tuesday they invited us for a three course meal along with a bottle of wine chosen by the
GM. We pootled up to their Albion Place location and plonked ourselves down in the lofty high
ceilinged dining room. The decor is a fun fusion of botanical garden and an alchemist's
laboratory which works better than you’d expect. The ambience is helped considerably by the
enormous, airy rooms with lofty ceilings that would be the envy of many stately homes.

For this invitation we had access to the full menu, and carte blanche to choose anything we
liked. When I was scanning down the sheer number of cuisines on offer I was getting a little
uneasy that I was in “microwaved lasagne” territory but the top level service and stylish
atmosphere helped allay that fear. I believe our server was named Ewan and he was fantastic.
When Ayah asked him if the cauliflower steak was photogenic he didn’t exactly say no, but he
did indicate that for a food blogger maybe one of the other options would be better suited. The
honesty to steer someone away from a menu item built a certain amount of trust in Ewan and
when he later recommended a lovely Sauvignon Blanc to go with our meal choices he solidified
his status as a great server.
Substance

I’m going to be brief on the starters as they were not what excited me to write this review.
I ordered the duck liver pâté, with toasted brioche slices and a carrot & apricot chutney. It was
exactly what you would expect from a good pâté. Rich, decadent and smooth. The chutney was
a little over sweetened for my tastes but my palette does lean toward the lower end of the
sweetness spectrum. The brioche was lovely, well toasted, a perfect textural counterpart to the
pâté.

Ayah had the Fried Chicken starter which was once again on the upper end of quality without
ever breaking through to fantastic. The chilli jam was a highlight that lent the dish a much
needed dose of individuality and set it apart from the numerous other fried chicken plates
available in Leeds.
Both of our starters were better than we expected, neither blew us away but at the same time
both exceeded our expectations for Lost & Found and put us in a good mood going into the
mains.

For main courses my eyes had beelined for the Masala Fish & Chips which immediately evoked
memories of our friend Ranni who some of you might know better as the man behind Jah Jyot
Street food. His pop-up serving of masala fish and chips at the Northern Monk refectory has
stayed with me for years and in an effort to recapture that I fixated pretty intently on this menu
item. Ayah was torn between a couple of other dishes but at the last second asked if I would
share the Lamb Mixed Grill and the Masala Fish & Chips with her to which I eagerly agreed.
It was this course that cemented this experience as not just good but great. The surprise
standout being the beautifully light, fragrant labneh style yoghurt dip which comes with the Lamb
Mixed Grill. I’m not sure how exactly to explain the texture of this harissa infused yoghurt. The
best analogy I can think of is whipped cream. As if they had whipped the yoghurt until it’s ready
to basically float away and then trapped it in a ramekin with a subtly spiced chilli oil to contain its
ascent heavenward. It paired perfectly with the chargrilled lamb koftas and the one flavour
packed marinated lamb chop. The chargrilled flatbread was good enough to appease even
Ayah’s finely tuned Jordanian palette which is usually incredibly discerning when it comes to
middle eastern style flatbreads.

There were two faint notes of discord with the Mixed Grill.
1.) The Hummus was. Odd. Not bad. Just odd. It had a strange, almost chunky consistency
which lent a grainy mouthfeel to every bite. The flavours in there were good, the strong garlic
notes were particularly welcome as so many other places overlook this in their hummus. But the
strange chunkiness did degrade our enjoyment somewhat.
2.) The Merguez sausage was OK. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it good. It was merely OK
and in a dish containing so many highlights its mediocrity stood out.

Onto the Masala Fish & Chips. This was amazing. We loved it. The fish had a delicate crunch to
the poppy seed batter and the chips had a wonderful pungent spice which lights up your mouth.
The Minted pea raita was more than just a fun twist on mushy peas. It brought the whole dish
together. It was the perfect combination of tribute to its humble origins and loving spiced,
beautifully textured accompaniment to this Indian twist on the British classic.

If I’m honest I’d like to stop the review here. At this point in our meal we were both thoroughly
stuffed and the thought of a desert had not crossed my feeble, Sauvignon Blanc addled, masala
infused brain.
It wasn’t until my much sharper better half reminded me that this was a three course meal that
the thought of pudding even crossed my mind. We ended up ordering a Sticky Toffee Pudding
and a Crème Brulée which were both far too big for my overstuffed stomach and came with
some of the most laughably enormous desert spoons I’ve ever seen. I had a couple of bites of
each and they were great, they would have been even greater if I wasn’t already stuffed to the
gills so I don’t feel I can give a fair review on the desert front as I barely ate either of them.
So that’s it.

In summation, we loved it.

We would go back. We would probably just order a couple of mains and a dessert to share but
I’m 100% confident we would enjoy every second as this place is, despite my pretentious
snobby expectations, actually very good..

It’s nice to be wrong sometimes.