Fat Hippo Leeds-Leeds Restaurant Week 2023 Review

As a Leeds Food Blogger, Leeds Restaurant Week is something I was pretty excited about. J and I decided to see how many times we could manage to go out to eat during the week, and I planned to write reviews of anywhere we made it to. Our first choice was Fat Hippo Leeds, which is in Headingley. We’ve actually been before, for my birthday in December, and we enjoyed the food then so the opportunity to try something else from their menu was too good to miss.

The Deal at Fat Hippo Leeds

For Leeds Restaurant Week, Fat Hippo Leeds were offering a starter and a main course from a smaller menu for £15. There was a choice of three starters and a choice of 8 burgers; 3 beef, 3 chicken and 2 veggie options. Pretty good for a limited menu in my opinion. Fat Hippo isn’t much more expensive than this normally, so it’s still a pretty pocket friendly place for a nice treat or a date night. If you go during their happy hour, between 5 and 6, you can get 2 courses for £16 or 3 for £18.50

Starters

We chose Trash Browns (deep fried tater tots, liquid cheese and cajun onion strings) and Dirty Waffles (waffle fries, Fat Hippo sauce and bacon bits) and shared them between us.

The tater tots were crunchy and very moreish, the cheese sauce delicious and even onion hating me liked the cajun onions on top. This was by far our favourite starter we’ve had at Fat Hippo.

The waffle fries were crunchy, there was a nice kick to the sauce, and the crispy bacon bits were a good addition.

Both starters were really good, but my vote goes to the Tater Tots every time.

Mains

J went for the Swiss Tony and I fancied the Kyiv-C. I’d always choose chicken over beef when it comes to a burger, and we were really impressed that there was more than one veggie option as J often chooses that. It’s rare to see more than one veggie option on a deal like this though-full marks Fat Hippo for that.

We weren’t sure about mushrooms on a burger but it didn’t have too many, and he enjoyed them. The Swiss cheese had good stretch, it had melted nicely. He isn’t a fan of mayo at all but couldn’t tell there was truffle mayo (so if you don’t love mayo either you’ll be fine, if you do you may want to ask for extra) and we felt the burger could do with some lettuce or something else green on it.

I had to take one of the two chicken burger out of the bun to be able to fit it into my mouth, they were so big. My burger had a nice crunch, it wasn’t too greasy and the mayo wasn’t overpowering. The chicken was quite juicy, not dry like some chicken burgers can be. J finished off my chicken even though it had mayo on it, which is high praise indeed.

We had a choice of chips or fries with our burgers and went for one of each. Both the chips and fries had a nice flavour to them, I think paprika or similar. The chips were nice and soft inside, not too crunchy on the outside and the fries were really crunchy. I would happily order either again but the chips would be my preference.

Neither burger was messy to eat which is good, as burgers can often end up spilt everywhere.

Drinks

Fat Hippo Leeds has a good selection of cocktails which I’d be straight into if I wasn’t driving. There was a Valentines special with marshmallow vodka, amaretto, maraschino cherries, ice cream and candyfloss that sounded AMAZING but we were sensible and went for soft drinks, apple juice and a coke. Not too sensible, though, as we also added a Mars Attack milkshake to share too.

There’s not much to say about apple juice or coke, obviously. The milkshake, however….. amazing. It was chocolate, salted caramel sauce, whipped cream and oreos and we really enjoyed it. My only criticism was our own fault, we should have ordered it to come after the mains, as a dessert, rather than with the rest of the food.

Our verdict on Fat Hippo Leeds

We’re definitely fans of Fat Hippo. We really like that the music isn’t too loud, you can actually talk to each other while you eat-which is nice! There was a good mix of families, couples, friend groups, it was a nice atmosphere, and the staff were even singing happy birthday to one of the other customers which was lovely.

Headingley is good for parking and Fat Hippo is a short walk from Headingley Train Station and an even shorter one from Burley Park. Loads of buses pass through from Leeds too.

The fact we’ve been twice in a couple of months shows we really do like Fat Hippo Leeds, and if you’ve not been yet I’d recommend you do.