Huddersfield's Festival of Light (huddersfieldlightfest.co.uk), four days of street theatre, art and music, starts today. But where to refuel between shows? All the places below come in at under a tenner.
1. coffeevolution
"Refreshingly fairtrade, refreshingly independent," runs the rubric at this refreshingly bohemian, left-of-centre coffee shop. Quite a fulcrum of local cultural activity (music and film events, art exhibitions, meetings of the Huddersfield feminist collective etc.), coffeevolution also serves vibrant homemade soups, sprightly salads, simple panini and fantastic cakes - by local company, Holmemades; the light almond tarts (£1.50) are recommended - and, of course, commendable, if not quite outstanding, coffee. Perch in the window, watch the world go by, read the Guardian. All will seem well with the world, deceptively.
• Filled bagels from £2, salads from £4. 8 Church Street, +44 (0)1484 432881; coffeevolution.co.uk
2. Gerry's at Neaverson's
Gerry's is one of those hip new-wave tea rooms (its walls are lined with beautiful vintage crockery, the background music jumps, skittishly, from Joanna Newsome to Mungo Jerry), that tips its hat to a sense of tradition and quiet refinement, whilst delivering sharp, doily-free food. The emphasis, naturally, is on local suppliers. Cakes come from award-winning local baker, Propermaid, meats and pork pies from the similarly well-regarded Huddersfield butcher, H Mitchell, coffees from town roasters, Cooper's. A test breakfast sausage sandwich was spot on. The bread was good-quality granary plentifully filled with moist, properly porky and not overly herbed sausage. Elsewhere, the menu runs from terrines, tartlets and platters to a classic afternoon tea (£7.95).
• Sandwiches from £3.95, "light bites" £6.50. 4 Byram Street, +44 (0)1484 453155
3. Bubble & Squeak Deli
With its wine shop, butcher's and upmarket restaurant, Eric's, Lindley is one of those smart, desirable suburbs where you probably couldn't afford to buy a house, but which is worth a short detour for food. Specifically, for those on a tight budget, the pleasantly cluttered Bubble & Squeak deli-cafe offers real, homemade food rendered with obvious pride. A very tasty and luxuriously smooth bowl of celeriac soup reaffirmed it as the king of winter warmers, although that day's other special - a hot roast beef and onion gravy sandwich (£5) - was equally tempting. A good place to pick-up a few Yorkshire delicacies (Denholme Gate honey etc.), Bubble & Squeak is also well-known for its frozen ready meals (from £3.50).
• Sandwiches from £1.90, takeaway. 97 Lidget Street, Lindley, +44 (0)1484 300449; bubbleandsqueakdeli.co.uk
4. Cotton Factory
From a food perspective, the Cotton Factory doesn't look promising. Part of the large Orchid pub group, it's a typical mainstream town-centre bar, with a rather glitzy Footballer's Wives aesthetic and a first-floor club space for Huddersfield's, quote, "beautiful people". Little wonder that all the grungy, student-types seem to be drinking in the local independent, Zephyr, across the road. But look beyond all that bling furniture, the background chart pop and those TV screens relaying Sky Sports News on mute, and focus, instead, on the Cotton Factory's huge pizza oven. The kitchen makes its own dough daily, hand stretched and stonebaked into surprisingly enjoyable pizza. A 6" fiorentina was topped with good clumps of irony spinach, decent mozzarella and the central egg yolk was perfectly runny. The base had reasonable char and that lively, faintly bready taste, not to mention the air pockets, that confirm fresh, well-worked dough. For £3.50 it was very impressive. As was the waitress's unprompted offer to bag-up the leftovers. On Tuesdays pizzas are 2-4-1 and from 12-4pm daily you can get a 12" pizza, wrap or salad and a drink (incl. Becks, Strongbow) for £5.95.
• Wraps from £3.75, pizza from £2.99. 50 King Street, +44 (0)1484 437230; cottonfactory.co.uk
5. Bradley's Restaurant
Slightly annoyingly, in terms of this guide at least, the two-course £5.95 lunch offer at Bradley's doesn't run in December, when the Christmas menu kicks-in. For the rest of the year, however, it is surely Huddersfield's best bargain. The kitchen's experience and rigour (Bradley's has been going for years, and is listed in both the Good Food Guide and Harden's) was clearly evident in a plate of slow-cooked, fulsomely-flavoured beef bourguignon that came with a mound of silken, buttery mash, a side of seasonal vegetables, plus bread rolls and good butter. It isn't advertised that you can order just one course, but I did, and was charged only £4.50. It's an eminently sensible policy for these straitened times, and a great advert for the wider Bradley's.
• Lunch, two courses, £5.95, three courses £7.95. 84 Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, +44 (0)1484 516773; bradleyscatering.co.uk
6. Thai Sakon
Local foodies rave over this zingy modern Thai restaurant. To bring it in under £10-a-head, you will either need to take away (10% discount), or stick to one course from the cheaper rice, noodle and vegetarian dishes, such as pad Thai, the unusual khao pad saparot (fried rice with prawns, onion and pineapple) or the vegetarian massaman potato curry. Stretching this series' self-imposed budget slightly, there is also an "early bird" menu (5.30pm-7pm, Mon-Fri; starter, main course, rice and tea/ coffee) at £11.95.
• Mains £5.50 to £10.90. 5 St Johns Road, +44 (0)1484 450159; thaisakon.co.uk
7. The Cook & Bakeware Co.
One of a cluster of trendy shops in Byram Arcade, this posh cookware and accessories store is also home to the Dining Rooms, a neat, contemporary cafe space with a reputation for accurate cooking. That was borne out by a precise plate of salmon and scrambled eggs, although, for £5.25, you don't get a huge portion of either. The menu covers plenty of bases, the core soups, sandwiches and daily specials (pies, risottos, quiches etc.), augmented by dishes that range from a two-course "Indian Experience" (£8.95) to a winter sponge pudding with warm spiced fruits and custard (£4.50). Very clean, fragrant toilets, incidentally. Which when you're looking for a pit-stop can often swing the vote.
• Meals £5 to £10. 14-18 Westgate, +44 (0)1484 513103; cookandbakeware.co.uk
8. Pub Grub Crawl
Even by Yorkshire standards - and this is a county in which good beer is seen as a birthright - Huddersfield has an unusually high concentration of superb, Camra-approved real ale pubs, several of which serve wholesome, cheap food as well as perfectly kept beer (expect to pay £2.20-£2.50-a-pint). You'll find two of them, the King's Head (St George's Square, +44 (0)1484 511058; the-kings-head-huddersfield.co.uk) and the Head of Steam (St Georges Square, + 44 (0)1484 454533; theheadofsteam.co.uk) on Huddersfield train station. The King's Head, in keeping with its rather spartan interior serves a small selection of good, simple filled baps, while the Head of Steam, like its sister venues across the north, runs the gamut from serviceable soups and sandwiches to homemade lasagnes and steak 'n' ale pies (from £2.95 to £6.45). The nearby Sportsman (1 St John's Road, Huddersfield, 07866 901162; undertheviaduct.com) does hearty, home-cooked stuff like vegetable broth (£3) and stew 'n' dumplings, while, just out of the town centre, the Grove (2 Spring Grove Street, +44 (0)1484 430113; groveinn.co.uk) carries, not just a quite staggering number of real ales and continental beers, but also a bizarre line in pub snacks (50p to £2.60). Its selection of exotic (game, ostrich, springbok) biltong meats is one thing, but you may need a pint or three to steady your nerve before you attempt the cheese 'n' onion larvae worms and bags of salt 'n' vinegar crickets. Save space for a final pint at the Star Inn (7 Albert Street, Folly Hall, +44 (0)1484 545443; thestarinn.info. NB. No food)
9. The Keys
A curious one, the Keys. Not only is it located in the crypt of St Peter's church but, at night, it frequently morphs into a cabaret and supper club, which hosts music and comedy events. That is, if you still consider Frank Carson and Stan Boardman to be comedians. By day, it runs as a multifunctional cafe-restaurant, where you can breakfast, grab a salad from the self-service bar at lunch, or enjoy a full meal from the specials menu (starters £4-5, several mains at £7.50 and £9.95). Judging by a sampler plate of fishcake with tomato fondue (a kind of concentrated, none-spicy tomato chutney), wilted spinach and a chive butter sauce, there is some crisp, accomplished cooking going on in the kitchen. A fishcake is simple enough of course, but very easy to get wrong. This had a good salmon-to-potato ratio, the right density, a thin, crisp shell and the accompaniments were all correctly executed and properly seasoned. Which is rarer than it should be. The fishcake, incidentally, was actually a starter from the specials' menu, but there was no objection to my ordering it as a one-course light bite. The Keys also sells excellent ginger biscuits from Wright & Co. in nearby Brighouse.
• Sandwiches from £3.95, salads from £4.05. Byram Street, +44 (0)1484 516677; keysrestaurant.com
10. 88 Noodle Bar
Reassuringly busy with east Asian students, this bare, basic canteen-cafe and takeaway is sensationally cheap. A deep bowl of noodle soup studded with wilted greens and fantastic little homemade prawn and pork dumplings is, perhaps, not as strident as you might expect. The stock is fairly bland, until you season it with plenty of soy, it's more a vehicle for the dumplings than a prominent flavour in itself. But overall it's filling, tasty enough and, at £4.20, a bargain. The menu runs on forever with almost none of the dishes topping a fiver. Notably friendly, helpful service, too.
• Most meals £3.80 to £4.80. 15 Cross Church Street, +44 (0)1484 428488
• Tony travelled from Manchester to Huddersfield with First TransPennine Express. Tickets from £10.30rtn.
