Bar review: Lazy Lounge, Leeds

In other words, it’s part of the fabric of the bar scene; the name trips easily off the tongue. If you’re planning an office leaving do or just want to somewhere to start the night off in easy-going luxuriant style, its landmark status serves, as does the location, which can only have been improved thanks to the now almost completed Central Square. For the last umpteen months, Lazy Lounge, along with a string of other businesses which front onto the 11-storey glass and steel construction, have been penned in by towering construction hoardings, pedestrians snaking their way through the narrow pass. Throughout all of that, Lazy Lounge appears to have more than survived. It’s held its own and now, thanks to a swish new pedestrianised area right on its doorstep, it can surely only benefit. I paid a flying visit to it one lunchtime a couple of weeks ago, nipping in alone to make my order. I always feel a bit odd ordering drinks on a dinner time, especially as I only had myself for company but in for a penny, so to speak. So, caution having been thrown to the wind, I promptly ordered a pint of Kozel (£3.70) and a cocktail (£6.75), which was a ‘Gin Smash’, made with raspberry and cranberry juice and poured over ice. Nothing wrong with the lager or the cocktail per se, the only thing I am going to pick up on was the preparation of the latter, which was a little lacklustre, if I’m honest, the bar member who prepared it kind of lethargically pushing huge cubes of ice around the glass for what seemed like an age - in the end, I wasn’t sure if the ice was meant to be ‘smashed’. In any case, the resulting cocktail was eventually strained into a new glass and was as cold and refreshing as you might imagine. As I was staying a while and not being one to make a habit of slinging vast quantities of alcohol down my neck of a lunchtime, I thought it prudent to order food and from the list, the ploughman’s appeared the least complex and so it proved, as it arrived within mere minutes of my order. To my mind, it was £7.50 well spent, with pork pie, a decent hunk of cheese, pickles and some thinly sliced meats. All very decent, bringing the total bill to £17.95. Service was prompt, the atmosphere here is the epitome of what I’m going to call ‘city cosmopolitan’, which I guess is defined by the fact it has suited office workers rubbing shoulders with well-clipped bearded hipsters, an older couple with scarves tossed over their shoulders (clearly about to shop) and plenty of excitable young folk. Lazy Lounge is laid back with sass and style.