All the dishes are made for the 'gram and beautifully decorated.
Your Girl Can Bake is the UK's first dine-in-car dessert shop, a hybrid between a drive-thru and a dine-in experience, where you never have to leave your car.
The idea is, you pull up your car and experience desserts like pancakes and waffles laden in thick sauce, washed down with giant freakshakes, mocktails and a whole host of fizzy drinks.
Image: Your Girl Can Bake
Set up in the height of the pandemic, owner of Your Girl Can Bake, Ikraa Riaz, started by selling homemade desserts on Instagram.
Like all the best lockdown success stories, Ikraa found success selling online and decided to pursue her dream of opening a dessert store and now operates from Ardwick in Manchester, which is a one hour drive from Leeds city centre.
Reimagining the dining experience in a world scarred by the pandemic, the concept keeps ahold of the intimacy of gathering and eating in small groups, but still provides the same service and food quality as a dine-in restaurant. It's certainly a far cry from the tight curbs and echoey tannoys of McDonalds drive-thru.
Image: Your Girl Can Bake
Whilst lockdown restrictions may have been the instigator for the dine-in-car idea, it's a concept that's continued to prove popular ever since.
The concept has drawn in influencers, who have taken to Instagram and TikTok to share their experiences, and there's plenty of positive reviews to choose from.
Reaching over a million views on a single TikTok video is the type of viral content any small business only dreams of: but it appears that the visual appeal of these tasty treats has kept customers continuing to visit Your Girl Can Bake long after its five minutes of fame on the social media channel.
And for good reason too. The menu includes mouthwatering Nutella-filled French toast sticks, cookie dough, fudge cakes and fondues in takeaway trays- just incase you can't finish it all in one sitting.
If that's not enough, there's those old school funfetti cakes (the ones you loved at school), giant bags of fizzy sweets, loaded brownies, mini dutch pancakes and cakesicles to try out.
Image: Your Girl Can Bake
There's even savoury dishes to balance the dining experience with loaded nachos, samosa chaat, samosas and kebabs all on offer.
To quench your thirst, there's berry-flavoured Fanta amongst other familiar and exotic soft drinks or mocktails that include a rainbow disco light ice cube for a late-night party experience.
If we're honest, it's the Easter collection that we're most excited about, even if it is only February. The Easter Madness Cookie Dough is half an easter egg loaded with cookie dough, melted chocolate and loaded with your favourite springtime treats like mini eggs and malteaster bunnies.
You wouldn't believe there's a team of three behind this incredible concept.
For more information, or to book yourself a place at the UK's first dine-in-car dessert experience, you can find Your Girl Can Bake on Instagram. Please note bookings need to be made in advance to give time for preparation.
Feature Image- Your Girl Can Bake
Eats
Neighbourhood Leeds bistro hailed as ‘a bit horny’ and ‘brilliant’ by national critic Camilla Long
Food critic Camilla Long visited Leeds for her latest review for The Times with her sights set on Horsforth's finest - Bavette Bistro.
Ever since opening back in 2024, Bavette Bistro nestled in the leafy suburb of Horsforth has made waves across the country for its sheer brilliance.
It's pretty much received five star reviews across the board and been handed awards from left, right and centre. And rightly so.
The Good Food Guide crowned Bavette the best local restaurant of 2024, and Michelin handed them a well deserved Bib Gourmand - so it's safe to say it's not just us who think it's really something special.
So it was only a matter of time until The Times popped in for a review, and this one is truly glowing.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
The review labels Bavette as "warm, unmannered and unpretentious" as well as "authentically French".
Long describes the food as "gorgeous, confident, surprising" with a menu that "isn’t too long" and "filled with sturdy, noble dishes, whiffing mightily of the sea and the soil."
It continues: "All of it made with generosity and cheer, served fast by nimble waiters, with a long, if slightly eccentric, wine list. To bang out French dishes with this much fiddly detail and to do it to a full room is not easy. Yet all four courses came in under two hours, for about £75 a head, which in London terms is nothing.
"It’s not that this place was perfect, it’s that it was decidedly not perfect. A bit too much chat about the menus; the oeufs in the meurette not quite runny enough. But the point is: it didn’t matter. All of it came charmingly together. It felt relaxed, just right."
The review is then wrapped up with a pleasing five stars, the cherry on top of the cake.
It's a review only restaurants can dream of, and we can't think of a more deserving team - congratulations Bavette.
Team behind Headrow House and Belgrave to take over and reopen Woodside just one year after opening
Clementine Hall
The foodie-favourite restaurant and bar is now under new management.
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that Woodside has sadly been closed for a few months.
We certainly have, and ever since December we've had a Woodside Sunday roast-shaped hole in our hearts that's been gasping for one of their glorious Marmite glazed parsnips.
But luckily, it has now been confirmed that Woodside isn't going anywhere as Superfriendz, the team behind Headrow House, Belgrave and many other top Leeds spots will be taking over. Hallelujah.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
Woodside opened at the end of 2024 from the owners of The Brunswick and The Melbourne.
Labelling itself as a 'neighbourhood eatery and bar', Woodside quickly became a favourite amongst Leeds foodies and was known for its smoked meats, great cocktails and stellar Sunday roasts (do I need to talk about the parsnips again).
The menu was fresh and innovative, with oysters topped with kiwi granita and an incredibly garish banana split standing out as highlights.
Images: The Hoot Leeds
We hope that the new management continues to maintain Woodside's brilliance, but mainly we're just so glad that it's sticking around.
Superfriendz take care of a whole host of spots in the city, including proper Leeds favourites Headrow House, Belgrave Music Hall and Waterlane Boathouse.
Announcing the news to Instagram, Woodside said: "After a longer-than-expected winter break, Woodside is back and will reopen on Thursday 19th March!
"Your favourite neighbourhood bar and eatery returns with the same warm welcome, but an all new management team.
"We can’t wait to see you so keep your eyes on our socials for news on great food and drinks, big screen sports, quizzes and more.
"We’d also like to thank Sam and the original team for all the hard work that went into setting-up the venue. We hope we can do it justice."
Sophie Smith -
16th February 2022 
