Restaurant review: Santorini, Leeds
This restaurant is a firm favourite with locals, and after our first meal at Santorini, it’s easy to see why!
Despite living in Headingley for over 3 years, we only made our first visit to Santorini a couple of weeks ago, and we absolutely loved it!
We went on a Monday night, and it was great to see the restaurant was so busy. Thankfully we’d booked in advance so there was no problem with getting a table.
Here’s the low-down… this is a family run restaurant serving authentic Greek and Turkish cuisine. The restaurant also doubles up as a bar, The Gin Room, and as the name suggests they have an extensive gin menu.
We were pleased to see they had some alcohol free cocktails on the menu too. I had a ginger beer mojito which had a really nice gingery kick, and Nick went for an elderflower bubbly.
Santorini Menu
My Recommendations
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To start
Traditional Greek Sausage
Hummus
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For Mains
Chicken Gyros
Grilled Lamb Chops
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To Finish
Orange Pie Portokalopita
To start I ordered the traditional greek sausage - this is a wild boar sausage, and it came with tzatziki and pitta bread. This was super tasty, the wild boar flavour was quite strong, and it went well with the freshness of the tzatziki.
And the pitta bread was SO good, really light and fluffy. I would have been happy with a big plate of this pitta and some hummus and tzatziki to dip it in for my whole meal!
Nick ordered hummus, and unfortunately he couldn’t eat the amazing pitta breads, but they did have some gluten free bread available instead.
For mains I had the gyros - I’d heard good things about these, and they really lived up to the hype. I went for the chicken one, and it came with tzatziki, hummus, tomato, cucumber, red onions, pickled red cabbage, and skin on fries - all wrapped in a pitta, with some more fries on the side.
This was a real feast - so much so that I couldn’t finish it and took some home which I re-heated and enjoyed for my lunch the next day. But so much flavour in the chicken, the whole thing was 10/10.
Nick ordered the grilled lamb chops, and it was another really generous portion size. Santorini isn’t a restaurant that you’re going to leave still feeling hungry! This came with fries and salad, and because Nick is dairy free they subbed the tzatziki with a salsa. The lamb chops were really big, they weren’t the really thin chops you sometimes get in restaurants, and Nick really enjoyed this dish.
We were too full for dessert, but I would have gone for the orange pie portokalopita. This is a traditional Greek yoghurt cake with orange & cinnamon syrup. There’s a recipe for this cake in a cookbook I bought recently - Yiayia by Anastasia Miari - so I think I’ll have a go at making it myself.
Our meal was really good value for money considering the quality of the food and the portion sizes. I also can’t fault the service, the staff were super helpful, especially with speaking to the chef about some menu changes for Nick’s dietary requirements
I’d definitely recommend a visit to Santorini if you’ve not tried it before; it’s certainly somewhere we’ll be visiting again soon!
Is Santorini Gluten Free friendly?
Yep, they have a gluten free menu on their website with plenty of choices of starters and mains. They have gluten free bread to serve with the hummus and tzatziki. I’m not sure if the desserts are gluten-free friendly though.
Is Santorini Vegan / Vegetarian friendly?
There are quite a few vegetarian options, especially in the small plates / starters menu. For vegans the choices are a bit more limited with just a couple of small plates, but they can serve the gyros as a vegan option with falafel or a vegan chicken, and they also have briam on the menu, which is a greek roasted vegetables stew.