Salts Diner

Very large trendy restaurant with plenty of tables and seating and the prices echo this. The lattes were excellent and lovely and hot. The food was tasty; my husband had a veggie sausage sandwich which was overloaded with sausages and I had two crumpets with butter. Table service was speedy, efficient and the staff were friendly and helpful.

Salts Diner is a great place for a bite to eat because of the setting and service from the staff. It's a really cool restaurant - really open plan in the old Salt Mill with the kitchen in the middle. The staff were very attentive and friendly. The food was OK, but I would have expected something a little more for the prices on the menu. We had pizza (the special) and it was very simple and something I could create myself at home quite easily. Nothing mind-blowing. The cakes all sounded really good but I'm not sure how "freshly home baked" they are. The scone was really tasty and slightly warm, which is a really nice touch, with local butter! Yum! The whole place is branded with a dog, by David Hockney, who also has work in one of the galleries. The dog on everything (including the waiters' and waitresses' tshirts) is quite funny and adds an extra bit of character to the place. The rest of the building has galleries, shops and an exhibition with a bit about the history of the place, which is interesting. All in all, Salts Diner is a nice place for a bite to eat in Saltaire.

Needlessly overpriced. I ordered one of the specials, the mackerel pate, picked cucumber and baguette for £12.75. The food was nice to taste, but nothing more than I could make at home, mackerel pate doesn't take much culinary skill. However my main gripe was with the bread and price. I was expecting a full hearty baguette, but it turned out to be thinly sliced and toasted bruschetta, not what was advertised. Receiving the plate I felt ripped off, for £12.75 it definitely fell into the main meal category, this was clearly a starter, what's more mackerel is one of the cheapest fish you can buy. I don't mind paying more for food so long as I come away having had enough. But paying higher price for small quantity comes off as the restaurant skimping. On the plus side after I complained the staff did put it right and brought some more food, and dropped the price to £11 on the black board. But it shouldn't take a customer to tell them it's overpriced, they should be reviewing their food and pricing before it hits the menu. I also never received my baguette.

We arrived at 12pm, there looked to be around 10 tables free and just one person in front of us in the queue, so we joined it. We were quickly asked how many people were eating, and expected to be seated soon. The person seating people was funny to watch, clearing tables, looking at his notes, ticking things off now and again, shuffling menus, generally doing things to make him look busy, it kept us entertained for a while at least. We realised that some people must have booked in advance, as they arrived at the front of the queue and were seated - fair enough but I wish this had been communicated to us when we arrived!). The queue was quite large now and we were at the front, so we continued to wait, getting less entertained by the antics of the guy seating people. After half an hour, we were seated to be told that there was a half an hour wait on food orders - WHY NOT TELL US THIS HALF AN HOUR AGO!!! Anyway, having waited half an hour, we decided to wait again. The waitress was pleasant and good. The food was mediocre. Not good but not terrible. The menu choice was very limited. The price was quite expensive for what we got really. This would have been so much better with some communication... Better still if they didn't bother reserving tables. All the guy had to do is tell us that the free tables were reserved, we didn't feel very welcomed.

Couldn't recommend a day at Salts Mill enough. We had lunch at Salts Diner; which was well worth the queue for the lovely food and excellent service. The atmosphere in the diner itself along with the views from the window AND George's friendly service genuinely made our day and completed the experience. There was so much to browse in the antiques shop we probably could've spent a couple of days looking through the trinkets and collectibles. Also elsewhere in the mill had a great interaction with Graham who was working in the shop on the ground floor. Couldn't recommend it enough to someone who admires the work of David Hockney and good food.