A firm favourite in Halifax, Ricci’s Tapas & Chiccetti is broadening its horizons this year and has finally ventured out into Leeds. Riccia’s is a vibrant, spacious restaurant that offers a hint of Balearic dining with its extensive and somewhat unique tapas menu. Cocktails are also on offer, and Gin lovers rejoice – there’s a pretty impressive offering.
Dishes such as goats cheese churros, braised oxtail, fish masala and rosemary & Ibiza salt focaccia give this place a real stand out creative flair over other dining establishments in the area. Highlights included the goats cheese churros – in fact, so much so that we need to potentially give them their own line in here… Good lord, these are good. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before in Leeds, and are surprisingly pretty much exactly as the name suggests – yes goats cheese on sweet churros; which I appreciate, sounds pretty bizarre – but take my word on this, they really are something special. Anyway, back to the highlights. Sweet potato wedges laced with figs, chilli goats cheese and honey were also up there, along with slow roasted suckling pig and a Mediterranean cheeseboard selection that will send your Insta (and tastebuds) into meltdown.
Service was attentive and super friendly, with staff willing to recommend and getting pretty enthusiastic over certain dishes we ordered – always a good sign. Dessert was pleasant, but probably not stand out (however it’s really the tapas that you come here for), and there’s also a digestif three cocktail dessert offering too, which I did like the idea of… but one of the cocktails we ordered was served wrong, and we were provided with an espresso martini instead, they also arrived quite some time after the dessert dish did; although in all fairness, we didn’t choose to highlight this to our waiter (as we were in a happy food coma daze), but I have no doubt, thanks to the service provided during the rest of the evening, that this would have been corrected straight away had we done so.
Ricci’s Tapas & Cicchetti is located at Goodbard House, 15 Infirmary St, Leeds LS1 2JS. You can check out the full menu here. I was kindly invited along to try out the menu at Ricci’s, however I was under no obligation whatsoever to provide a review.
