Restaurant Review: The Rock Tavern, Elland

Mar 12 2010 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Restaurant Review: The Rock Tavern, Elland

Rock Tavern

Dewsbury Road, Upper Edge, Elland

Rating

Venue Rock Tavern

Tel 01422 253612, or 07905151063

Opening hoursMonday to Friday, 5pm until late. Saturday and Sunday, noon until late. Food served until 9pm.

Children No separate menu

Disabled access Ground floor access but limited parking outside.

The bill £75.50 for seven, exclusive of drinks

REMEMBER Huddersfield’s Caribbean @ Queenz café, which used to be situated on one corner of Huddersfield’s indoor market?

Anyone who ate there will instantly recall the home-cooking of its proprietor Maxine Maragh – the goat curry, jerk chicken, salt fish fritters and West Indian staples.

Well, the café might be gone but Maxine’s back, this time serving up her Caribbean comfort food at a most unlikely venue.

Late last summer Maxine and her business partner brother Robert re-opened the Rock Tavern, Upper Edge, on the border between Elland and Huddersfield.

The former pub, which had been empty for more than a year, required a lot of work but is now a bar with a small, unfussy dining room where all the old favourites are on the menu.

Caribbean food with its eclectic mix of ingredients and spicy nature offers something a bit different.

On a cold spring evening, with the temperature gauge in the car pushing 0 deg C, we decided to give the Rock Tavern a try, to see if Caribbean food could bring a bit of much-needed sunshine into our lives.

We invited my mum, who says she’ll eat anything and is always willing to try a new dining experience, and some friends with a teenage son, who is quite the opposite.

Not many others had ventured out that particularly chilly evening so we were the only diners. When I rang to book Maxine made a point of saying she only serves Caribbean food, so I wonder if she’s encountering a bit of resistance in this hinterland of Huddersfield.