The Knowhere Guide

Eating and Drinking in Luton, Bedfordshire*

Luton, Bedfordshire Pubs, Cafes, Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Food

• Got to be Sammy's - great kebabs after a night at Charlie Browns and to get a late drink, albeit vodka or brandy!
• For a great, cheap lunch on a budget, go to the sandwich shop at the end of Park street, opposite iceland in town. Great rolls and very cheap-tea is only 40p. Aroma is great-an oriental chinese buffet-5 pound for lunch all you can eat, 10 pound for evenings- the food is pukka. Also Nando's if your looking for some tasty chicken.
• The Luton Kebab House on the corner of Bute Street. Best kebabs in Luton, and the guys are very friendly
• GET TO BURY PARK BEFORE I ZAP IT, but Indian Ocean in Sundon Park is good.
• calafornia chicken, dont eat the chicken but a good box of chips for a pound.
• YATES BEST FOOD IN TOWN.
• jimmys kebab is still the best in the county
• Best restaurant is 'Fields' in the new St Lawrence Hotel on Guildford Street, which has an imaginitive menu and London standards of service. Hurry, it won't last long. An excellent and very smart restaurant called 'Mumbai' serves fairly authentic Indian food in the Galaxy Centre. Good Thai and Indian food sold from stalls on George Street most Saturdays.
• the old chip shop in Dunstable road Bury park opposite the old cinema, went there when I was at uni in 93, closed down now, sells hala chicken
• The patties from the market. All flavours inc veggie.
• Just been to Nandos in the Galaxy and the food is hot, hot & hot, cool music and cool staff, bout time Luton had cool resturant, i think their number is 01582431808, you can get take-aways aswell.
• If you want an experience of pure sleaze you could do worse then go to the kebab shop at the top of Cardigan Street. This grimy dingy place serves the worst kebabs I have ever tasted!
• SUBWAY everytime
• mcd's
• Sanabil's does the BEST 50p samosa's in the WORLD. They are at the traffic lights just after Town Tub Laundrette on Leagrave Road. Also does a chicken curry pastie which is great for breakfast. The Conways Arms is not a Pub anymore. It's a Halal Takeaway and restaurant. Scared to go in it though.
• The Lotus Pure Vegetarian Restaurant on Cheapside (behind the Arndale, next street along from the Engine). Excellent vegetarian, mostly vegan food, friendly staff, usually very quiet. The Luton & Dunstable Vegans group ( http://veganator.users.btopenworld.com/ ) goes there for a meal about once a month, and it's great!
• Great mexican restaurant in Chapel Street. Excellent food and service and a good line in cheeky cocktails as well.
• Best Kebab near the train station on Midland Road. Good quality well made kebabs. White House (JD Wetherspoon Pub in town centre) is good value. To Pigithaki Greek Taverna is great. Pizza Express has good pizzas when you want to sit and eat one (as opposed to getting it delivered to your door).
• The usual chains!! But our village resturants are wicked. The Lynmore in Sharpenhoe (just outside Luton) is lush. Pizza Express has just sprouted up in the town centre which is cool.
• Southern Fried Chicken - Crawley Road Road - nice chicken - only they can run out when they get a run of party packs :-(
• Greenfields again. Also the many Indian restaurants in Wellington Street. Lovely grub.
• Greenways
• Excellent Indian restaurants in Wellington Street
• Don's kebab van, car park of the Bramingham in Barton Hills. The food is spot on, but be warned, Don will always have left five minutes before you get there. During the week, he can be seen driving off before last orders, and no Sundays or Mondays. Or when he wants to stay in and watch telly. But great when he is!!
• Without doubt the best Indian restaurant in the town,Is the JAY RAJ,Hitchin road,stopsley. Try WEST WAY fish and chips,off putteridge road........you won't be disappointed!
• The best Indian is Master Chef on Hart Hill Lane and Chinese is the Jade Cottage on Old Bedford Road - both deliver and make sure you get some onion bargies (spelling??) from the Indian - lurvely!
• That Italian pace with the plastic table cloths near the train station..... MMMMMMmmmmmmm Yummy (nice Bruschetta) or however you spell it!!!!!
• Beware the Halal chicken take away in Bury Park - had the trots for a week.....
• Go to Bury Park for the best smelling and tasting food (Fried Chicken). Its got bad reputation but thats cos of the people who dont live there or go there cos they're too scared of it.
• Blossom Garden on Marsh Road - always very good food and ALWAYS a long wait
• the kebab takeaway outside wauluds highrise mind the piss if the winds in the wrong direction it spoils the flavour of his chilli source
• Good Earth chinese takeaway on Granville Road near the football is without doubt the cheapest in the world. The unspoken rule with it's fellow customers is: Don't tell them they're half the price of anywhere else! I don't think they even realise.
• Brannigans, White House and The Newt and Cucumber are the best for pub food. Also Luton is home to numerous chicken, pizza, chinese and curry take aways.
• Efeler Kebab in the town centre, pukka after a few beers.
• India Tandori Garden - Wellington Street (well it was six years ago!)
• Bury Park has a wide range of take aways but is a hot-spot of inter-religous tension with black cars with blacked-out windows.
• There is a cyber cafe in Luton town centre - The Hard Drive Cafe at 16 King Street.
• I think that the best quality fish and chips in the town, bar none, is available from Colin and Rita's, in Tavistock Street.
• The chippy beside the Uni is great... and so is the food in The Rat and Carrot & the Newt.

Pubs

• The Sportsman in Stopsley Village, great pub, very busy Friday/Saturday nights.
• BUCKWILDS
• Brookes, The Park for the alternative and indie crowd,The Whitehouse can be ok but you do get some knobs in there-nothing unusual.
• The English Rose on Old Bedford Road - quiet cosy family pub with excellent food and friendly atmosphere. Serves a variety of real ales.
• TOWN CENTRE A NO GO, TRY BARTON. When I was 20 ish town centres were ok, what's happened?
• SPACE NIGHTCLUB everyone loves to be bottled.... i mean drunk
• Lots of Irish pubs
• Avoid Bellini arroagant ownner entrance based on your clothes!!
• In the age of the binge drinker and drunken fighter no pub gets more sirens than the favirte in sundon park.A little riot evry weekend. With the best people for sundond park, Hockwell Ring , marsh farm and leagrave there you are always going to get top english entertaiment.H
• wetherspoons is still the cheapest but saddlers is a close second
• The Whitehouse does cheap food but attracts large numbers of old alcoholics until mid-evening.
• Warden Tavern 88-early 90s cool crowd and a great disco on sunday nights
• The George II, just by the train station in luton. Welcome atmosphere and a live band most fridays!
• They're all rubbish. Been away from the town for a while and recently come back. The pubs in luton like the clubs, demand that you walk round waiting to fight some little inbred rude boy of you. They all play the same shit music and are all full of beer boy twats
• Bird and Bush, Bushmead!! Hello everyone there!
• Just before we got together, my hubby told me he loved me in the Brewery Tap...aaaah! Actually, the best Sunday pub is the Green Man in Great Offley but that's in Hertfordshire so maybe doesn't belong here but we have walked to it a number of times in the summer and then got the bus back.
• The best pub in luton is the white house. very cheap, great food, nice atmosphere. Mixed crowd of people from 20 - 70 in age.
• Eddies Bar serves TAYTO crisps - I have no idea how as you can't get them anywhere else in England. The crisps don't quite compensate for the slightly intimidating clientele though.
• MILLIONS OF THE BLOODY THINGS!
• White House in the town centre, one of those great value Wetherspoon pubs. Very large pub.
• The Brewery Tap was always the best, played some really cool tunes, none cheesy. It has now changed hands 3 times and is becoming less of a find and regular crowd as it once had. Yates is still shit! Brooks' is cool cause its open after 12. Euphoria is probably one of the best, its where the old firkin used to be which was shit, but its really funky in there and its also open for longer which means getting absolutley hammered. Been chucked out of the edge so that place is shit! Brannigans is the grab a granny contest! White house is ok, but no music. The Heights (formerly the Rat and Carrot) is also quite ok for getting steaming, and lets face it that is the purpose of everyone in Luton!!!
• Two Brewers in Dumfries Street. One of the old original pubs. Warm and friendly. Good Guinness.
• the best pub has to be eddies,good looking barmaids and a decent pint.spent most of my student lone in that place
• Bedfordshire Yeoman - local pub without the rumbles. Brooks - nice low brow bar. Whitehouse - cheap cheap cheap - Strangley grand for luton, weird mix of crowd.
• The Cock (now a Murphys chain brand I think?) was always good for heads-down, no-nonsense drinking. Eddies Bar - never saw a fight in there in me life.
• Best pub for rock/indie/metal types is the Bridge Tavern on a Friday/Saturday. Or Sunday nights for all you old skool rockers! Its a bit dingey insid but its the only place to go, simply because its pretty muh the only rock pub in Luton.
• If you want an olde English pub in the middle of town go to The Brewery Tap on Park Street - fantastic building with a generally typical Luton (ie Loud scary looking but loveable rouges) lads. Good food and very good bar staff. If you are looking for a more up beat trendy bar, go to "the Stop" (also on Park Street) - which is relatively new and attracts fresh young things and everyone looks gorgeous (well after a few drinks!). They also have three pool tables and a great sofa chill out area. The bar staff in here are some of the best I've seen and they are very nice and incredibly lively!! If you're a student go to the its a scream pub "the Park" - on Park Street
• The Bramingham in Barton Hills.. dodgy selection of beers( Charles Wells), but well kept, excellent clientelle, good laugh.
• Luton has ad a bit of a make over recently and most of the names in this guide have changed Newt and Cucumber is TP Woods, the Firkin is now Euphoria and Pitchers is The Sports Bar Lots of new clubs including @mosphere and liquid for the young and skinny and places like Branigans and Chicago's for the more "mature" punter. White House and Brewery Tap nice and cheap The Castle for a quiet pint
• Euphoria............on chapel street.Nice decor,banging tunes,great atmosphere. revamped"Dog and Donut".........on market hill.Much nicer inside now,than it used to be.Chart hits and lots of punnanie! The Barrels..........cannon lane,stopsley.New friendly landlord,good atmosphere of recent.
• The Gardeners Call on High Town Road is my fav, but for Town pubs I'd recommend the Stop on Park Street - it's not really studenty like some of the other pubs in town. Also the Brewery Tap is a must!
• O'Shea's in Castle Street, especially w/ends, best Guinness in the Home Counties, great music at w/ends, v.friendly clientele, smashing landlord too!.
• Whatever the rat and carrot used to be called it was good./ The brewery trap is good in the summer.
• Wheatsheaf Luton - the only place outside of Whipsnade you can enjoy the smell of the rhino house in the bog
• The Fedora and Firkin in Chapel Street has closed and reopened as a chrome-y nightmare. The Newt and Cucumber is now called T P Woods but still does great pub grub (I highly recommend their steak and Guinness pie but only if you like mushy peas) Not ALL pubs in Luton are the same (loud music, tarts and psychos) -try The Castle opposite Brookes' for an altogether different pub. More expensive than many, but they have a dartboard and haven't had any hospitalisations because of it!
• The Bedfordshire Yeoman on Dallow Road. Clientelle have seen better days, scary landlady but take a trip there well worth it for the stories to tell your friends the next day.
• Only available for under age drinkers
• purley tavern watch your back someone might knife you for your trainers
• Most depressing pub, the one on Dallow rd, and it's the only pub in the area
• Eddie's Bar, fantastic watering hole for most of Luton's Irish population which single-handedly stopped the extension of the railway station (and has all the press cuttings to prove it!)
• Little South Luton locals.
• At the Market Hill end of town, Yates'Wine Lodge and The Dog and Donut (previously the Rat and Carrot)are the best, at the other end, Brannigans and somewhere in between, The Newt and Cucumber
• yates,cork and bull,the tap,pitchers,railway tavern,conway arms last two good if you req gear
• All the pubs in Luton are essentially exactly the same. LOUD DANCE MUSIC, Pretty Girls and violent pissed up physco's everwhere.
• Fedora and Firkin, Chapel Street. Brews its own beer on the premises. Two Brewers, Dumfries Street. Bohemian atmosphere!
• Luton has a great selecttion of pubs and clubs to rival big cities like London. The best pub to visit before your big night out is The Newt and Cucumber in King Street. You could also try The Brewery Tap.

Cafes and Coffee Shops

• Greenfields is way too expensive, The Sandwich shop on Upper George street does the best rolls ever-you pick what you want and they get it ready straight on the spot. Theres also seats to sit down for lunch.
• greenfields rules the girls are so fyne robby's ia ok for a bacon sanie i supose
• What ever you do keep away from a crap cafe at the Arndale Centre called Robbies cakes and coffee. It is dreadful. The service is abominable and its waitresses are modelled on the Eva Braun model. If you have plenty of time and dont actually want to eat or drink anything then go along and sit for half an hour until they think its your turn to be served. dont be too excited though. this place actually employs people who's job is not to serve you. A waste of space. Walk across the balcony to the bright green restaurant, its cheaper, much nicer and the girls who serve you are really good.
• the one in the arndale..morellis is a bit expensive for a set up in a not very upmarket shopping mall
• None come to mind.
• Ha Ha Ha
• Greenfields, the best.
• If you want to be completely startled by a lack of hygiene and charm than i would strongly recommend 'Tims Kitchen', this grotty little cafe can be found situated in the royal london mall near mcdonalds. You may even be lucky enough to be greeted by the sour face twat of an owner and alleged manager, Mr Fowler. If you are not completely overwhelmed by the standard of food then i'm sure the staff will provide motive for an interesting conversation.
• Robbys Cafe- Arndale Centre simply the best.... Friendly staff and excellent prices.
• Coffee Beans just opened on King Street and has to be the nicest place for a lunch time snack.
• Morrellis Cappuccino in the arndale centre do the best Cappuccino's, they use posh coffee (i know 'coz i used to work there)
• Only where they sell coffes etc
• The Sicilian - Kimpton Road. Top nosh - keep an eye out for the violin cases
• Kazmicks
• Greenfields - well worth the little bit extra, try the omelettes and milk shakes
• greenfields no its nothing to do with me the name is a coincidence honest
• Wouldn't recommend any of the town centre ones.There's one run by a Man U fan on Manor Road.I tried to be as friendly as i could, being new to the area, but the bloke was a bit of a tosser. The food was fucking awful too!

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Last updated: 2007-10-06