Well known restaurant La Grillade to return

ONE of the best known names on the Yorkshire restaurant scene is returning to life.

La Grillade, which was shut just before Christmas by owner Guy Martin-Laval after 33 years in Leeds is to reopen at a new home in Ripon.

The iconic French restaurant is to relocate to a site on Kirkgate opposite Ripon Cathedral and is due to open around mid-September.

The basement restaurant, famed for its quality French food, was popular with the Leeds business community as well as writer Alan Bennett, who was a regular diner for two decades, before Mr Martin-Laval took the decision to close because of rising costs.

At the time Mr Martin-Laval said the “final straw” was when the Leeds City Council food and health team insisted that the restaurant pre-cook steak tartare before chopping it and preventing it serving a raw egg in an egg shell with the dish.

Now he is looking forward to opening his new restaurant in Ripon.

“It is goodbye to Leeds and hello to a new venture in Ripon. It is a substantial restaurant with 60 covers and a private room for functions.

“A lot of my old clientele from lunchtimes live up and around there and we look forward to welcoming people to La Grillade.

“I did consider having a new name for the restaurant, but when I listened to my friends and former customers they all said I should keep the name La Grillade,” he added.

Born in Marseilles, Mr Martin-Laval came to Britain in the 1970s and worked as a travelling champagne salesman before moving to  Leeds and opening its first French restaurant La Grillade in 1981.

He opened a larger brasserie in East Parade – where Blackhouse Grill is now – in 1993 before selling it to City Centre Restaurants and moving back to his original site in the late 1990s.

He also ran a popular wine bar and restaurant called The Waterhole, in Great George Street and owned a vineyard near Narbonne.