“Lindley, a village, a township, and a chapelry in Huddersfield parish, West Riding Yorkshire, stands on high ground.
“It has a post office under Huddersfield, a penny savings’ bank, a church institute and reading-room, and a commodious mechanics’ hall, erected in 1849, and including a library and reading room. Houses, 876.”
That description appeared in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-1872.
Today Lindley is still thriving, although it is an altogether different place.
Life no longer revolves around the commodious mechanics hall and church institute. The heartbeat of the village these days are fashionable restaurants, cafés, boutiques, delis, artisan bakers, pubs and a trendy bar or two.
With Kirklees’ Local Development Framework (LDF) in tatters, planning has become a free-for-all, and Lindley is the developers’ destination of choice, with a number of new housing estates just built, being built or about to be built.
That’s bad news for the countryside, but good news if you are running a local restaurant.
And the latest one to try its luck is Olivetta, a Turkish restaurant on the site of the old Leena’s, which opened at the beginning of November. The owners already have a successful sister restaurant in Halifax.
The website proudly proclaims “the finest Turkish cuisine,” so I was rather surprised to see fajitas, nachos and pizzas on the menu, having previously thought they originated in Mexico and either Italy or the USA, depending on who you believe.
To be fair, Olivetta had a good range of Turkish and Greek dishes on offer, and the owners have obviously augmented the menu to appeal to a wider audience.
And indeed when two of us went along a couple of Fridays ago, the place was already full at 6.50pm - the Early Bird menu is obviously a big hit (5pm to 6.30pm Monday to Saturday, two courses £11.95. three for £13.95).
We were 10 minutes early and had to return to the downstairs bar until our table was ready. There we watched a belly dancer with a body of liquid rubber strut her stuff on the big wall-mounted TV screen. It probably goes down a storm in the bars of Istanbul.
Upstairs the interior is modern, with a mural of the Blue Mosque covering one entire wall and the clever use of a giant mirror on another to create an illusion of spaciousness.
In fact, the café-style tables are tightly packed together and we found ourselves ushered to probably the worst one in the place – in the middle of the room between two large parties of friendly, but loud, women.
While we waited for our menus, we glanced around and at first thought the ceiling to be unfinished, as it had strings of what appeared to be rough plaster hanging from it. On further inspection we decided that this was deliberate.
There’s an excellent choice of hot and cold starters from Turkish, Greek and Mediterranean cuisines. We went for halloumi (grilled white cheese) and sucuk, a grilled Turkish sausage served like thick strips of Spam. It certainly tasted a lot better than it looked, with a bit of a kick and plenty of flavour.
I enjoyed the halloumi, although it would have benefited from a minute less under the grill.
For the sake of the review we ordered two main dishes, but to be honest, one would have been perfectly sufficient as the portions are very generous.
My chicken fajita arrived sizzling with onions, mushrooms and peppers and a small side dish of cacik, or Turkish yoghurt. There were copious pieces of chicken breast, but rather too much oil for my liking.
When I asked for more Turkish yoghurt, the friendly waiter brought a small ramekin with some in – for which I was charged an extra £2.
Highlight of the evening was the shish kebab, comprising large slim pieces of pink and wonderfully cooked marinated meat – a lamb lover’s delight.
Olivetta
17 Lidget Street, Lindley, Huddersfield, HD3 3JB
Tel: 01484 766680
Website: www.olivetta.co.uk
Opening hours: Monday-Thursday 11.30am-2.30pm & 5pm-10pm, Friday 11.30am-2.30pm & 5pm-11pm, Saturday 5pm-11pm, Sunday closed
Children: Welcome
Disabled access: No
The bill: £48.30 for two with four beers, but could have eaten a lot cheaper
Would you go back? I probably won’t, but it’s definitely worth a try if you like lamb
