Meat-drunkeness* sweeps Leicester

Edit: Meatcure Leicester closed October 2017, followed by Grillstock a year later in October 2018 🙁

Can you believe it’s been 7 months since I called it and officially declared that Leicester is an awesome place to eat, drink and make merry? No, neither can I – where has the time gone? And since then we’ve seen even more new businesses popping up to offer us a great time – Brewdog has opened its doors, the Drinks Bus continues to pootle from event to event and Crafty St Martins has turned from pop up into permanent fixture.

The carnivores amongst you will be pleased to hear that the new eatery trend continues with big hunks of meaty goodness in two parts of the city with new restaurants popping into existence in the coming weeks.

Grillstock are claiming to be bringing Meat, Music and Mayhem to Leicester. Opening on 29th May 2015, this will be the latest addition to the hip and happening St Martin’s Square. This will be the fifth restaurant in the chain, which all began with the co-founders seeking to bring competition BBQ to the UK and building a meat and music festival in Bristol, the eponymously named Grillstock which is now held in both Bristol and Manchester. Their smokehouses followed soon after and they appear to be building quite a name for themselves.

A view of the new Walthamstow branch gives us an idea of what the Leicester Grillstock will look like

I took a sneaky peek at their website to check out the menu and see what we can look forward to in a couple of weeks’ time – turns out its straight outta the US of A, honest to goodness pit smoked barbecue with all the fixin’s. And that’s proper hardcore barbecue, not the rain soaked, windswept, burnt-to-a-cinder sausage of a tradition UK BBQ – we’re talking brisket, burnt ends, burgers, pulled pork and the like. Think about all the stuff you’ve seen on Man Vs Food and you’re in the right area, especially by the look of their £35 ‘Grand Champion‘ meat challenge!

Sorry vegetarians, Grillstock is not for you – I looked over the entire menu and the mac n cheese was literally the only item which doesn’t contain meat… And of course you have the option of adding meat to your mac n cheese!! I for one cannot wait to try it. Looks right up mine and The Boy’s street after our adventures with Californian and Hawaiian cuisine!

Fear not though, those of a vegetarian persuasion! Despite how it sounds,  the arrival of Meatcure should not fill you with quite as much horror. Although the small Market Harborough company has already made a lot of friends on social media with their burger and hot-dog offerings, they also have lighter options, some of which do not have any meat at all!

OK, that’s admittedly a bad example, but they do have salads (including a special offer between 12pm and 5pm for any salad with an Aperol Fizz for £10). The onion rings in that tweet above look veggie too, so there you go.

I’m really happy to see a local firm doing well enough to open a second venue – big up the Leicestershire talent. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Market Harborough branch but having looked at the tweets I think for my money this is going to set a new bar for gourmet hot-dogs in Leicester city centre. *drools*  And literally two minutes walk away from my office at work. I think that means I win.

But this means that the burger-based competition in the city continues to hot up. Who is your favourite so far? Crafty St Martins? Byron? Do you think these new contenders will be able to compete for the crown?

* Meat drunkeness is a real thing.