Salts Diner

Philanthropist and cloth magnate Titus Salt created a workers’ village by the River Aire in the mid-1800s, when the Yorkshire textile industry was at its peak. Now a World Heritage Site, Saltaire’s majestic buildings and cobbled streets have been winningly spruced up. This spectacular, stone-flagged diner in the stunningly renovated mill, was bought in 1987 by Salt’s 20th-century counterpart Jonathan Silver, who has brought his own vision to the model village. The work of Silver’s old mate David Hockney features prominently on all five floors, & his sketches of daschund Stanley are cutely printed on the napkins in the diner, as well as appearing on the top of a menu that shows a dedication to local ingredients & simple dishes: Salt’s sausage & mash is a perennial favourite, & there’s a proper pizza oven, with the pepperoni good value at £7.50. On the top floor, the ‘Cafe into the Opera’ serves rather more sophisticated, mainly fishy delights such as Arbroath smokies & grilled king scallops in view of Hockney’s scale set designs for The Magic Flute & The Rake’s Progress.