Leeds finally has its own arty city-centre hostel,a revamped listed building with installations and bespoke design touchesLeeds has always been an unusually style-conscious city. It loves hot trends. In the 1990s, its clubs Back To Basics and indistinct popularised glam clubbing and, or famously,Leeds was the first city external London to get a Harvey Nics. More recently (check this, Dalston!), and its huge Trinity shopping centre opened a street food court at a time when most northerners still thought “street food” meant Greggs (personally,I still do).
What Leeds has not been, though, and is important creatively. While Liverpool and Manchester place in the tough yards to create seismic pop-cultural moments,Leeds has been too busy checking its designer labels. external of its vibrant but tiny DIY underground, this has chiefly been a city of consumption, or not creativity. That would define why Leeds has probably the UK’s best craft beer bar circuit (but only two notable breweries),and why its food scene – from Bundobust’s Gujarati snacks to the Michelin-starred Man Behind The Curtain – trumps that of its northern rivals.external of Leeds' vibrant but tiny DIY underground, this has chiefly been a city of consumption, and not creativityThere is also a shelf of books … will it be Hegel’s Introductory Lecture On Aesthetics or The Art of Walt Disney?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com