It’s a tough time to be a pub. Last year alone more than 400 businesses rang the last orders bell for the final time. Since 2020 that total is over 2,000. One of those casualties was The Highland. A quirky, flat-iron shaped wedge of post-industrial Victorian red brick just over the ring road from Leeds city centre, first opened as a pub in 1925.
Over the next almost-century it would be many things to many people - when Opal 1 & 2 student accommodation opened in the mid-00s, The Highland’s conveniently stumble-into-able proximity meant it was home to many newcomers’ first pint in Leeds. They’d share the bar with firefighters and Dingles from the nearby Leeds Fire Station and the ITV studios.
Before that, in the 1960s and 70s, regulars included reporters from the nearby Yorkshire Evening Post (bar tales mention one of them being a young Mark Knopfler) and the local community, but it also had a reputation for pouring the best pint of Tetley’s in Leeds which people would make the journey for (source: my Grandad). During this time it was known as The Highland Laddie.
It’s this slice of the pub’s storied history that owners Sam Pullen and Nicole Deighton drew on for inspiration in aesthetic and spirit as well as name. When we spoke with Sam a few months ago mid-renovation he told us their intention was for The Laddie to be a neighbourhood pub: an informal, inclusive place where people could turn up on their own or with friends, speak to familiar faces at the bar or keep themselves to themselves.
Stepping into it now, it feels exactly like that. Billed as ‘a drinkers pub with dining room’ The Highland Laddie is a pub of two halves – turn left into the bar and be greeted by brass fittings twinkling in the sun and the red glow of a vintage Guinness tap box on the bar, echoing the red and black colour scheme of the textured-wallpapered walls and ceiling. Small round tables line the triangular room where you can fit about four people and their pints, empties, and a couple of bar snacks (possibly six if you’re close acquaintances, or one of them is telling a particularly good story).
Turn right as you go in and you’ll be in the cosy dining room, along with a log burner in the fireplace and five or six bookable tables where you can have a proper sit-down meal from ‘the fireplace’ - an 8-foot open fire grill built into the hearth that formerly housed a fireplace in the kitchen’s previous life.
This isn’t Sam and Nicole’s first rodeo. You might be familiar with their debut venue: a Good Food Guide Best Local Restaurant Empire Cafe, where wood and charcoal fuels a menu of globally-infused modern British small plates. The Laddie’s menu, meanwhile, is rooted much more in classic British tradition, albeit remastered in glorious technicolour.
Surf and turf is reimagined as sardines with taut skin blistered by the grill, doused in a slick of pork trotter gravy. Madeleines sweetened with lobster are baked fresh to order, and served still-warm ready to melt the accompany pot of Yorkshire chorizo butter. The traditional clingfilmed ham bap sweating away on the bar is deconstructed into a plate of sliced ham, smoked on the fireplace every morning and served with dinner rolls, butter and a selection of mustards.
Their burger dribbles juice down your arms and spits in the face of smashburger supremacy – ‘thick as half a dozen beer mats’ and bright pink in the middle. ‘Clotted cheese’ is a puck of house-made Red Leicester, clotted cream, and cream cheese emulsification designed to lose all composure between a hot burger patty and a lucky-fat toasted potato bun. If you want something more refined then ‘Club Steak’ – a bone-in sirloin – is measured by inch-thickness rather than weight. Two inches will set you back £45, three for £70.
Shepherd’s pie of spiced lamb keema with urid dahl and potato ‘Poppadom mash’ brings a bit of spice to the menu in a nice nod to Desi Pubs which came around during The Highland Laddie’s day, as well as Sam’s years growing up in Bradford. Despite the menu’s chop house-style meaty leanings, one of the standout things we ate was a treacle onion tart – a sweet-savoury frangipane, essentially, topped with crisp onion rings.
If it’s just a light bite you’re after, bar snacks include Vindaloo devilled eggs, house-made sausage rolls, prawns served by the half-pint, and oysters on the half-shell: displayed irresistibly on ice at the end of the bar with one member of staff dedicated to shucking and topping each with a bright pink pickled baby onion ‘pearl’.
Let’s not forget this is a pub, so you’ll be relieved to know that due care and attention has gone into the drinks selection. Four local casks are all kept in good condition, the Guinness tastes like Guinness, their own ‘Laddie Lager’ Belgian Pilsner definitely isn’t a rebadged Becks Vier like many Pubs ‘own’ lagers, and they’ve even gone full Life on Mars and sourced the UK’s best-selling keg beer of the 1970s, Double Diamond.
There's a genuine commitment shown here to preserving The Highland's legacy while bringing it into the modern pub era. It’s easy to hang an old mirror in a pub and call it a day, but by showing real attention to detail and a dedication to Sam and Nicole’s vision, even two weeks in The Highland Laddie feels established, lived-in, and already well on its way to becoming a neighbourhood pub for the community.
WHEN Opened April 2025
WHERE 36-38 Cavendish St, Leeds LS3 1LY
FOLLOW @thehighlandladdie
BOOK @thehighlandladdie
The Good Food Guide allows three to six months before anonymously inspecting a new restaurant. Look out for a full review coming soon.
