Start from 39 curated places around Leeds, GB, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Bavette
A small French bistro in the leafy suburb of Horsforth that was crowned Britain's best local restaurant by the Good Food Guide and carries a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Think proper steak frites, offal done well and a tight, confident menu in a room that seats only a few dozen. Worth the trip out for a long, unhurried dinner.
Ox Club
A live-fire grill restaurant inside Headrow House, built around a custom solid-fuel oven that does the heavy lifting on Yorkshire produce. Whole cuts of beef come out for sharing and the Sunday roast is among the best in the city. Industrial-cool room, no theatrics, just smoke and good meat.
Trails & outdoors
Roundhay Park
The easy flagship walk in north Leeds, a flat circuit of Waterloo Lake through one of Europe's largest city parks. The full lake loop is a couple of miles on good paths, with the Upper Lake and Canal Gardens as quieter add-ons. Accessible, family-friendly and the local default for a green hour.
Meanwood Valley Trail
A roughly seven-mile green corridor running from Woodhouse Moor near the centre out to Golden Acre Park, following beck, woodland and old mill sites. You can do the whole thing or split it into three manageable sections. The best moderate walk that starts within reach of town.
Things to do
Royal Armouries Museum
The national collection of arms and armour, housed in a purpose-built museum on the waterfront and free to enter. Galleries run from medieval jousting armour to firearms and Asian and Oriental collections, with live demonstrations and combat displays through the day. Easily the best free family attraction in the city, and good for hours indoors.
Leeds Art Gallery
A free Victorian gallery with a strong holding of 20th-century British art, including Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, who both have deep Leeds links. The connected Tiled Hall Cafe is one of the most beautiful rooms in the city. A compact, high-quality stop in the civic quarter.
Landmarks & sights
Kirkstall Abbey
A ruined 12th-century Cistercian monastery sitting in a riverside park about five kilometres northwest of the centre, and one of the most complete medieval abbeys in the country. You can walk straight into the roofless nave and climb the spiral stairs that survive in the tower. Free to wander, and the Abbey House Museum across the road recreates Victorian Leeds streets if it rains.
Leeds Kirkgate Market
One of the largest covered markets in Europe, a Grade I-listed Victorian hall where Marks & Spencer started as a penny bazaar. Hundreds of stalls run from fishmongers and butchers to a row of cheap, excellent cooked-food traders. This is where locals actually shop and eat lunch, not a tourist re-creation.