York Cafés
Yorkcafes.co.uk is a compilation of York Cafe reviews. We employ anonymous critics to visit cafes in York and give the cafes an honest review. Members of the public are then able to rate and review the York Cafes themselves, which affects the cafe's positions on the York Cafe reviews leader board.
Our York Cafe reviews are split into two simple categories, those cafes where you pay for your meal afterwards and York Cafes where you pay first. York has many kinds of cafes, and there's no way to tell if you're meant to pay first or afterwards without asking when you arrive.
Sometimes people prefer the quicker Pay First approach to cafes if they're in a rush and don't want to wait for a bill to arrive afterwards, while others are not in any particular rush and prefer to take their time in choosing from the cafe menu.
All York cafes are rated from one to five, one being utterly terrible and five being faultless.
When rating the cafes we use five criteria, and we hope you will consider the following when you rate the cafes yourselves: Price: how does the price compare to other York Cafes, bearing in mind the size of your meal and its quality; Decor: does the decor look stylish, not necessarily to your taste but is it well maintained and not falling to bits? Cleanliness: Is the cafe clean? Were your knives and forks clean, your plates and cups etc? Service: Were you well treated, were the staff friendly or were they apathetic misanthropes? Food: Was your food nice, well made and well presented. Could it have been better?
Leila’s opened in July 2011 and is situated on Fossgate in a nice building showing off some original Victorian interior architecture.
The decor in Leila’s Cafe is bright and a little quirky, which is a good thing as it adds to the experience. In fact the more you look around, the more things you notice. The first element we noticed was the beautiful ceramic tiles on the wall, then I spotted the chandeliers made from egg whisks. There are shelves on the wall with rows of modern chrome Japanese-style teapots, which you get a close look at if you order tea. There are plenty of other nice features to discover so I shall not list them all and spoil it for the reader.
There aren’t any big meals on the menu, it’s very much a sandwiches and cakes and tea type of cafe. They do serve English breakfasts, but only in the morning which one of our group was a little disappointed about. However, we decided to order their afternoon tea combination of sandwiches, a selection of cakes and a scone with cream and jam and a pot of tea, of which there were several to choose from – we had the Earl Grey.
The food was a while in coming, but blimey it did arrive in style on a three tiered plate arrangement, one for each of us, that towered before my eyes. We all really enjoyed this, starting with our sandwiches on the bottom plate, working up to the cakes on the middle plate and finishing with the scone with clotted cream and jam on the top plate. If you have a sweet tooth I would definitely recommend ordering their afternoon tea, though you may not be able to finish all the cakes.
The girl serving us did a very good job and she was very friendly and polite. The whole experience was a positive one and we all came away feeling happy, and full of cake. It is definitely a must try cafe that I will happily recommend to anyone, in fact I already have a few times now.
11-12a Fossgate, York, YO1 9TA – Tel: 01904 632140
