Trendy Italian Restaurant & Bar serving “Stuzzichini” – a bit like an Italian version of tapas but bigger and richer dishes. Food was delicious, service was good, the atmosphere was really nice – definitely recommended by me!

Our first meal booked for the #EatOutHelpOut scheme was at Stuzzi in Leeds City Centre. I have been wanting to go for ages and now I’ve been I can’t believe it took me so long to go, it was SO good! Initially when it came to Merrion Street it looked like a Butty Shop from the outside what with the logo and no other clues, but this got me intrigued! Food served here is a real mixture of traditional recipes and street food essentials and is made to be eaten in a tapas manner, shared between diners, accompanied with great wine or beer.

Following government guidelines at the time of our visit, the restaurant has a one-way system and social distancing in place, with all servers wearing masks. We were seated at a table in the lovely open and light dining area and the style of dishes and dining was explained to us, as well as the recommended number of dishes to share between 2 (4 dishes to start with and you can order more if you need – we totally didn’t need to!).

The menu here is concise, which I was a fan of!! It means only the best ingredients are used and it is easy to select something you will enjoy. There are a few nibbles and sharing platters on the menu, then the Stuzzichini menu offers both meat and vegetarian options as well, all priced between £7.50 – £15 (with a steak dish priced at £22.50) – currently perfect timing to give these a try whilst it’s half price on a Wednesday this month!

Our selections were;

Arancini – Traditional Sicilian street food staple – Deep fried beetroot and red wine risotto balls stuffed with gorgonzola dolce butter. A portion gives you two LARGE balls, and they were absolutely delicious. Actually Ben’s favourite which I think surprised him!

Fritto Misto – Deep fried selection of seafood served with lemon and caper aioli. This was a large portion and was absolutely delightful! Lots of large whitebait, 2 king prawns, and mini bits of calamari all deep fried. The whitebait was great, we’d never seen such big ones! The prawns were so juicy and tasty it’s a shame there was just 2. I have to say the calamari was lacking a bit, we had a lot of just bits of batter, but never mind as we enjoyed the rest so much, it was the only dish we couldn’t finish.

Stuzzi Meatballs – Stuzzi Beef and Mortadella meatballs in a spicy san marzano tomato sauce. In this portion you get 5 big, juicy, fresh meatballs with lots of tasty sauce. Really delicious and you can tell they are made fresh!

Malfaldine Pasta – Fresh homemade pasta with a lamb & black olive, pancetta and mint ragu, topped with an anchovy crumb. – Wow! This looked good, this tasted good, we loved it. A different pasta dish to most Italian restaurant menus and you could really taste every ingredient.

Apart from a few pieces of whitebait we cleared the lot, with a beer and a red wine to wash it down with! I would say that I am happy we used the current offer with £20 discount, as the bill originally came to £53 for 2 alcoholic drinks and 4 dishes, which is probably average to top end for Leeds and so I would tend to stick to visiting here for an occasion, but it is WELL worth it, we loved the food. Check out their website here for more info.

Get yourself booked in here and let me know what you think!

Happy munching 🙂

Jen @jensfoodblog

#jensfoodblog

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