Six of the best dog friendly places to eat in Leeds

At Friends of Ham, we bring the dog to a table and begin arguing pleasantly about cheese. At the Smithfield, the discussion moves to ox tongue; beside the canal, it is settled by a pizza covered in sausage and bitter greens. Leeds gives us rather more to consider than whether somebody will produce a water bowl. We can eat ambitiously with the dog beneath our chair, or spend very little on lunch and put the saving towards a drink.

These six places take us from New Station Street to Holbeck and across to North Street, with a final stop beside the Minster. They accommodate different appetites, including the perfectly reasonable desire to sit indoors with a pint and something substantial after a walk. The most interesting meals involve a little choosing: greens to accompany sausage, a young Yorkshire cheese, the cut of meat that catches our attention before the steak does.

1 Water Lane Boathouse

We approach Water Lane Boathouse beside Lock Number One, with the lead shortened for the water’s edge. Its name suggests somewhere to put a boat; the building was actually an early nineteenth-century transhipment warehouse, where canal cargo changed stages on its journey. Now we can occupy a table by the same water with considerably less to organise. The pub welcomes dogs in every area, an unusually clear policy that frees us to choose between the waterfront and the interior according to the weather.

Our table is in the main bar, with the dog beside our feet. This floor is accessible without steps; the mezzanine requires a climb, and even the lower bar involves two steps, useful distinctions if a member of the party has limited mobility. The room is part of a much bigger social space, with seating across two floors and a substantial outdoor area. Water Lane’s enthusiasm for dogs has produced its own Instagram account and a Scruffs event. We do not need our companion to become a local celebrity. Being able to move lunch inside is the more dependable attraction.

Our order is the sausage and friarielli pizza, £12.95. Friarielli are the slightly bitter leafy greens familiar from Neapolitan cooking, where their partnership with sausage appears in sandwiches and on pizzas as well as on a plate. They deserve more explanation than the menu’s single Italian word: their job is to give the pork something to push against. Here Sicilian sausage, provola cheese and fresh chilli accompany them on a white base. We lift a slice, keeping it above the dog’s jurisdiction. The absence of tomato makes sense; the greens already supply the edge that the meat and cheese need.

The kitchen also rolls its pizza dough into stromboli, then slices it, exposing the filling. The £13.95 meat version contains spicy salami and ’nduja, the soft Calabrian pork preparation whose chilli and fat can be spread through a dish. That is a heavier proposition than our greens, even before the extra fresh chilli. For a vegan companion, the Hot Vegana puts squash beneath spinach, roquito peppers and vegan ’nduja. At £12.50 it has a composition of its own, rather than asking someone to enjoy the spaces where the cheese used to be.

Vila Nova vinho verde, £7 for 175ml, supplies a little spritz with lunch: a Portuguese white that suits our pizza. The cocktail offer deserves a more careful reading than its large print: two cost £14.95, but they must be the same drink. Agreement across the table saves money. So does coming on a Sunday, when pizzas are half price outside bank-holiday weekends; the £10.50 margherita becomes £5.25. That is a meaningful reason to arrange a canal walk around lunch, especially with more than two people to feed.

Water Lane works particularly well when the party wants different things from an afternoon. We have a proper lunch; someone else can stay with a sandwich; the dog can remain with us inside or out. Its scale and sociable purpose make a quiet daytime table the sensible choice for a dog that dislikes commotion. We finish the pizza and gather the lead. The canal is right there, and there is no need to make the walk earn an expensive meal.

Canal Wharf, Leeds LS11 5PS.

2 The Midnight Bell

At the Midnight Bell, we take the dog into the downstairs bar and look upwards before opening the menu. The beams and brickwork belong to a building with a more particular past than the usual pub description of “industrial heritage”. Number 101 Water Lane was a house and storerooms for the Round Foundry, the engineering works developed by Matthew Murray and his partners around the turn of the nineteenth century. Machinery for textile mills and early steam engines came out of this complex. The pub occupies part of those works, giving us somewhere to sit within Holbeck’s engineering history.

It is tempting to turn that into a history lesson and forget the drink. We order Midnight Bell, the pub’s namesake beer: a 4.8 per cent dark mild made with crystal and chocolate malts and Willamette hops. Mild is a beer style, not a promise of negligible strength. This one offers a useful change from the increasingly elaborate pale-ale decisions that can occupy a Leeds bar. We put the glass down, arrange the lead away from passing feet and give the menu a proper reading.

The £21 pork belly is the order that holds our attention. It comes with a duck-fat fondant potato and a black-pudding bonbon, plus carrot, braised red cabbage and cider sauce. The black pudding adds a darker, spiced element to a plate already committed to richness. Cabbage and cider bring the sweetness and acidity needed among the fat. We take a little of the potato with the sauce. This is food for sitting down to, and we are pleased to have finished the energetic part of the walk.

There is a less elaborate route through the same appetite. Swaledale sausages, £18, come with mash, baby onions, pancetta and red-wine gravy; a steak-and-ale pie is £20. The menu belongs to a recognisable pub tradition, although it keeps adding things to it. Chicken receives brie, bacon and ’nduja cream, a combination for people who regard restraint as somebody else’s lunch. We favour the pork belly’s cabbage and cider over that accumulation. Vegetarians have a £19 vegetable-and-spinach pie, with a vegan version available, so a mixed party can stay within the same substantial style of meal.

The dog fits naturally into the bar downstairs. Upstairs is more oriented towards dining, so we make our dog part of the booking conversation rather than assuming every table will suit. There is also a courtyard, served through a bar hatch in warmer weather, though outside tables cannot be reserved. On a bright afternoon, allow for the possibility that the garden will be full. Indoors, we can stay close to the bar and give the beer the attention for which we came.

Custard accompanies the £7 panettone bread-and-butter pudding we divide between us. Italian festive bread gives the pudding a fruitier starting point than an ordinary loaf. The visit has cost more than a quick pizza by the canal, but buys a different afternoon: a substantial meal in an old foundry building, with a dark Leeds beer and the dog settled beside us. The bar downstairs is where we choose to spend it.

101 Water Lane, Leeds LS11 5QN.

3 Laynes

We take the dog through the yellow frontage on New Station Street, close enough to the station for breakfast to become a negotiation with the timetable. Laynes has had fifteen years to develop that temptation. Dave Olejnik opened it in 2011, concentrating on speciality coffee; the café has since expanded twice into neighbouring premises and established a bakery in Armley. Those changes explain the decision we face at the counter. What began as a reason to stop for coffee can now occupy most of a morning.

At the table, we put the dog beneath our chair and start with a flat white, £3.90. Espresso is usually made with Square Mile’s Red Brick, although staff-selected guest coffees sometimes take its place; the filter offering changes more frequently. That is worth asking about if coffee is the principal reason for the visit. The breakfast eater opposite a coffee enthusiast has sweetcorn fritters and Turkish eggs to consider, so neither of us needs to hurry the other.

The sweetcorn fritters, £13.75, come to our table with feta, tomato kasundi, pickled onion and yoghurt. Kasundi is a spiced relish; in this company it gives the tomato a more assertive job than a spoonful of breakfast salsa. Corn brings sweetness, feta brings salt, and the onion supplies a sharp interruption. We draw some of the yoghurt towards a piece of fritter, then add a little relish. Coriander and mint keep the assembly from being simply corn and cheese. An extra poached egg costs £2, but the dish has enough going on without one.

The fritters have outlasted several changes around them. Olejnik was discussing them as Laynes classics in a Leeds Living interview back in 2020; they remain among the current breakfast choices while the business around them has grown. Across the table, £8 Yorkshire rarebit with Henderson’s Relish is a smaller commitment, especially when we intend to return to the bakery counter. Henderson’s is the Sheffield-made seasoning, whose Yorkshire allegiance makes the name on this dish more than a change of adjective.

All the baked goods are made by the Laynes team. We choose a £3.90 tebirkes, the Danish-style pastry with almond and poppy seeds, and a £3.75 Marmite-and-cheese swirl to take with us. The range moves easily between those northern European influences and a Portuguese custard tart. Owning the bakery makes this a more substantial claim than assembling an attractive counter from bought-in pastries: the Armley operation also supplies other independent cafés and delis around the city. It is possible to meet Laynes’ baking elsewhere without realising where it began.

The practical limitation is time. The café remains open until 7pm on weekdays and Saturdays, but the kitchen finishes at 3pm during the week and 4pm at weekends. A late coffee does not imply a late plate of fritters. There is also a discretionary 10 per cent service charge for eating in, and laptops are excluded at weekends. At a busy breakfast table, a dog that settles readily is easier company than one hoping for the freedom of a pub garden. With the pastries packed and the lead back in hand, we check the time. Coffee was never likely to be the whole visit.

12–16 New Station Street, Leeds LS1 5DL.

4 The Smithfield

We stop at the curved glass frontage on North Street with the dog beside us, recognising the address even if the name needs explaining. This was the Reliance, a restaurant whose disappearance left a conspicuous gap in Leeds dining. The Smithfield is its current occupant, a collaboration between Crooked Brewing and chef James Donovan. Burgundy paint has returned to the frontage, but lunch requires more than an affectionate colour scheme. We come inside for the cooking.

With the dog settled by the table, we order a Crooked beer and read a menu that puts pig’s head and ox tongue near the top. The pub is listed as dog friendly by the Good Food Guide; mention the dog when booking so the table works for everyone. This is an appealing combination for owners who want an involved meal in a pub setting, though the interest is very firmly on the plate. A dog able to lie quietly through several courses will make the visit easier than one campaigning to leave after the first drink.

Pig’s-head croquettes and gribiche begin our meal, £5.50 on the sample menu. Gribiche is a cold French sauce involving cooked egg, herbs and pickles, exactly the kind of sharp accompaniment that gives rich meat a reason to come out of its coating. In his June 2026 Good Food Guide account, Thom Archer singled out these croquettes and the chips for the kitchen’s work at the fryer. That endorsement is useful when choosing where to begin. We divide the croquettes, bringing the sauce into each portion, and leave the focaccia within reach for anything that escapes.

Donovan previously cooked at Rochelle Canteen, Margot Henderson’s restaurant in east London, and then at Native in Sheffield. The interest in less fashionable cuts continues here. Smoked ox tongue comes with tonnato, an Italian tuna sauce, while pork belly is accompanied by white beans and anchovy. Fish appears where a less curious menu might merely add more meat. In the £25.50 pork dish, anchovy supplies concentrated savouriness to the beans; with the tongue, the tuna sauce belongs to a northern Italian tradition of serving meat with fish. We choose the tongue, £13.50, and follow it with braised mutton shoulder, £28, with carrots, chard and salsa verde. The green herb sauce offers an energetic accompaniment to mature sheep meat; it is a choice for somebody who wants lamb’s flavour developed further.

These dishes and prices come from a changing sample menu, so the precise route through lunch will depend on the day. Come interested in Donovan’s cooking rather than committed to one photograph. There are vegetables in their own right, including an aubergine, courgette and walnut main with cavolo nero and mozzarella, though an aversion to both meat and fish narrows the field considerably. The discretionary service charge is 10 per cent.

The drinks list gets another look while the dog remains at our feet. Crooked’s beers are a direct connection to the new owners; the wines preserve a connection to the old ones, whose Wayward Wines business supplies the restaurant. We keep to the house Smithfield pale, letting the brewery have its own place in the meal. For us, the strongest reason to return is the kitchen’s willingness to offer a proper meal around less predictable cuts. Bringing the dog does not require us to give up ox tongue and spend the evening with another burger.

76–78 North Street, Leeds LS2 7PN.

5 Friends of Ham

We bring the dog into Friends of Ham, whose name has already announced most of what our companion hopes to find. With a table found and the lead gathered out of the aisle, our first drink is manzanilla, £6 for 50ml. This dry sherry is a useful way to approach a bar whose food revolves around cured meat and cheese: it directs our attention towards salt, bread and another small mouthful. There is no obligation to order a succession of courses. We can build lunch a little at a time, provided we remember that small plates still add up.

The £20.50 Ibérico charcuterie plate makes an instructive beginning. It puts Arturo Sánchez jamón and paleta beside cured pork loin. Jamón comes from the back leg; paleta from the front. They are different cuts, not competing spellings, and tasting them together is a more enjoyable way of learning the distinction than reading a glossary. We work across the plate, returning to the sherry between pieces. The sharper cornichons offer another way to interrupt the cured meat before taking more. The dog has chosen an exceptionally difficult lunch to supervise from floor level.

For the cheese, we add Yorkshire Pecorino, £5.50. The name can mislead anyone expecting something hard enough to grate over pasta. This is a young sheep’s cheese with a milky, yoghurt-like character, made by Mario and Sonia Olianas in Otley. Mario grew up in Sardinia and came to Yorkshire in 2001 to learn English; selling Italian food at Leeds farmers’ markets eventually led to a cheesemaking business. The method travelled, and the milk is local. His fresco matures for about thirty days, retaining a softness that puts it at the other end of the pecorino family from a long-aged grating cheese.

We put a piece on the sourdough and leave the chutney alone for a moment. A cheese this young deserves a mouthful in which it can be understood before being introduced to everybody else on the board. That is the pleasure of the selection here: a lunch apparently devoted to imported delicacies can also explain something about food being made nearby. Friends of Ham sells Leeds Bread Co-op sourdough and much of its cheese and charcuterie through the little deli, so an interesting discovery need not remain a restaurant memory.

The current sample menu also offers a £28 seasonal board of two meats and two cheeses, a simpler route for anyone who prefers to delegate the decisions. Grilled-cheese sandwiches provide a more economical hot lunch before 5pm. We leave those for another occasion and finish with a £7.50 Pedro Ximénez affogato, in which sweet sherry takes the place of coffee over Northern Bloc vanilla ice cream. Moving from dry manzanilla to PX is a small education in the range concealed by the word “sherry”. It also gives dessert a reason to belong in this bar.

Dogs are welcome indoors, and we can book just for drinks if food is secondary to the visit. Weekend reservations are sensible and must be made through the website; a walk-in allocation preserves some chance of spontaneity. Anyone needing step-free access should book the main ground floor and request the ramp for the entrance step. The discretionary service charge is 10 per cent. For a party with a severe allergy, the venue’s advice matters: it recommends eating elsewhere because of possible cross-contamination in its small kitchens. Vegan choices exist, but ham and cheese remain the main conversation.

We finish the ice cream while the dog waits beside the chair. This is the place for an unhurried lunch that lets curiosity dictate the next order. The option of buying pecorino to take home resolves our lingering question about ordering more.

4–8 New Station Street, Leeds LS1 5DL.

6 Lamb and Flag

Beside Leeds Minster, we bring the dog into the Lamb & Flag and take a table among the exposed brickwork and large windows. It feels established, but this particular pub opened in 2015. The building had an earlier drinking life as the Thirteen Bells before the restoration returned it to pub use. The restoration leaves us with old brick around a modern pub, and a courtyard facing the Minster. Dogs are welcome inside as well as outside; the courtyard is a choice, not a condition of admission.

Indoors, we order Leeds Pale, the brewery’s 3.8 per cent ale made with Slovenian Bobek hops. It gives us a lighter starting point than Midnight Bell’s dark mild. The food menus of the two pubs share several familiar dishes, so choosing between them can reasonably begin with where the walk has brought us. Here the butternut, goat’s-cheese and spinach Wellington attracts us at £19. A vegetarian main wrapped in pastry makes a respectable claim on a pub lunch; this one adds charred leeks and almond-and-sage butter, giving the vegetables something more considered than an accompanying jug of gravy.

A cut through the pastry brings some leek onto our fork. Squash contributes sweetness, goat’s cheese acidity, and sage has the savoury force to hold its own against both. The butter and almonds make this a rich dish despite the absence of meat. It suits the appetite with which we have arrived, though anyone looking for a light lunch should resist equating vegetarian with slight. The dog settles close to the chair as we move the plate further onto the table. A pub that gives this much attention to a meat-free main is useful when the group’s convictions differ but everybody wants a proper meal.

Across the table, the spiced lamb rump, £24, comes with whipped feta, potatoes and tenderstem broccoli, followed by chimichurri, pomegranate and mint oil. That is a busy collection of accompaniments. The Wellington seems the more coherent order to us, its ingredients working around squash, cheese and sage, while the lamb asks several strongly flavoured elements to share the same space. For a simpler choice, the £18 haddock is battered with Leeds Best and served with chips, tartare sauce and pea purée. We keep the pale ale with our food and leave a little appetite for the £7 Arctic roll and blackberry compote. Ice cream enclosed in sponge has never needed to be expensive to make us pleased that we stayed for pudding.

The courtyard tables are allocated on arrival, so a booking cannot secure an outdoor spot. With a dog, we book indoors if a particular time matters and treat the garden as a possible improvement in good weather. The kitchen serves until 9pm Monday to Saturday and 7pm on Sunday, making the Lamb a useful later stop after a city walk. We finish the beer with the dog beneath the table and the Minster outside. Of the familiar dishes shared with its sister pub, the haddock is an easy choice; for a reason to choose this kitchen in particular, we come back to the Wellington.

1 Church Row, Leeds LS2 7HD.