Dirty Martini - Cocktail Bar in Leeds — Restaurant in Leeds

Myself and 3 friends attended dirty martin in Leeds for a festive bottomless brunch. The brunch costed £45 per head for a 90 minute brunch which was a bit of a sting, but we thought the Christmas take on the brunch would be worth the money - we were wrong!

The brunch was off to a bad start when it took over 20 minutes for our first drink to arrive. In fact, our food arrived way before our first drink did. Whilst I understand the bar was very busy, this is not the experience we paid for and it instantly but a dampener on the whole event. The pace of the drinks did not improve much throughout the 90 minutes, totalling around 4 drinks each (plus prosecco) which were all quite small.

What made the brunch worse was the fact that it was taking place in the same space as the normal bar, on a very small bar table next to the dance floor. This was far too loud, to the point where we could hardly hear each other - not helped by the fact we couldn't read each other's lips because our bird cages of food (which were very small portions, did not reflect the images shown on the dirty martini website) were blocking our views of each other on the tiny table which was clearly not intended to host a bottomless brunch.

On top of the really loud music, there was a dancefloor next to our table meaning we had groups of people stood/dancing right next to us for the majority of the brunch. A glass was smashed by a customer right next to us and could have easily been stood on by any one of us if we did not see where the shards of glass went, as it was all shattered underneath our table. Nobody in the bar came to clean this, and it took us ages to point it out to the staff because the visits to our table were so few and far between. Eventually the glass was cleaned up, but this took far too long and was a safety hazard.

It was clear that the bottomless brunch was absolutely not meant to be happening on our tiny table downstairs and should not have been sold as such - we received hardly any drinks and the environment we were in made the brunch an unenjoyable experience because we simply could not communicate with each other in that space. Looking around at the other bottomless brunches happening in the same space, it was glaringly obvious that this sentiment was being shared by other groups. The website booking quote of 'get yourself and your group the best seats in the house' could not have been less true.

Finally, and this is a smaller issue as this does happen at other venues too, but I am a type 1 diabetic meaning I usually have drinks with diet mixers/ingredients. I knew there would not be many diet options as there never are at brunches, but this is usually remedied by me asking for vodka and diet coke as an alternative to the cocktails. This has happened at every bottomless brunch I have ever attended, but this was refused at Dirty Martini. I was offered gin and diet tonic as an alternative which I had no choice to accept. Unfortunately, I just do not like tonic, so I didn't enjoy the majority of my drinks. I had to do an extra injection of insulin in order to be able to have 2 cocktails just to make the already poor experience a bit more bearable. I would encourage more alternative sugar free options, at the very least offering diet coke or diet lemonade.

When I pointed all of this out to customer services after the brunch, I was basically told that it was my fault that I did not point out the need for diet coke (despite it being served at the bar) before the brunch, and that there was nothing wrong with us being sat on a tiny table by the dance floor/bar.

1 redeeming quality is that the staff were lovely when they were at the table, but you could see they were being overworked far too much for the number of staff that were on shift.

We pay for bottomless brunches because we want to have a lot of drinks and a nice environment, and frankly if we knew what the brunch was going to be like we would have either just paid normally for some drinks at the bar or done a brunch elsewhere. Would not recommend the...

I have been to Dirty Martini several times, both Leeds and Manchester. On this occasion I was with my wife, daughter and her boyfriend. After around 30 minutes the manager, Tom, arrived and informed us that we were drinking "too fast" and that we wouldn't be served for 10 minutes. He was quoting "responsible drinking" as his reason for this... At a "bottomless brunch"!! And after just 30 minutes! I have been on countless bottomless brunches at countless establishments and I have Never, EVER been asked to slow down or refused a drink.(usually quite the opposite) There were no other customers in. I spoke to Tom to try and get things moving, but he bluntly refused and spoke to me condescendingly like I was a child, and refused to change his stance. I am 52 years old. With my family. The remaining 60 minutes were ruined by this small man's attitude. I was not rude to Tom, nor did I raise my voice or get aggressive or abusive in any way, but on complaining via email afterwards he accused me of being aggressive and threatening. Absolutey not. I totally kept my cool when talking to him. There are no T&C's or small print on the website that say there is a limit on drinks consumed OR a time period between drinks (hint, bottomless means there is no limit) so I would suggest that the name is changed from "bottomless brunch" to "brunch where you can drink what Tom thinks is acceptable" (not quite as catchy, but more honest) Totally miss sold product. The manager took great pride in telling me he'd been in the industry for 10 years. I think it's time for a change of career... maybe one which provides a uniform such as a traffic warden? A bar environment is no place for such a joyless, condescending individual. Tom even said that I wouldn't drink at the speed I was drinking if I were paying per drink!! Errr, Isn't that supposedly the whole point of a "bottomless brunch"??? Completely ruined what should have been a great start to an evening with my family. Never, ever again.

Edited to reply to response.

Very nice try with your reply. Quoting "duty of care" is an absolute nonsense. We were not even 30 minutes into the 90 minutes and unless Tom is also a clairvoyant, he would have no way of knowing if we'd have slowed down the pace of our drinking or not. Not that we should have to either way. My review never mentioned "value" When you falsely advertise a bottomless brunch, and then put a limit on the amount of drinks that you deem acceptable, this is false advertising. Plain and simple. But even with that aside, Tom's attitude was completely unacceptable. He ruined an afternoon out with my family, and it's a shame that you stand behind him (unless it's actually Tom who wrote the lovely reply, attempting to take the high...

Update: I've updated my review as the Leeds branch were apologetic and asked us to come back to show us it was a one off. As soon as we went in the whole place just seemed much more organised that when we went previously, we didn't have the bottomless drinks so unable to coent on that, but the waitress was quite quick at bringing the drinks we ordered, so hoping this has improved. The food was also much better, they had stopped making the bread buns different colours which certainly looks more appetising and everything was on there this time. Maybe last time we caught them on a bad day?! Who knows but happy that the second was much better.

4 of us went yesterday for a bottomless brunch, it was really disappointing & the worst brunch we have had by far in Leeds. 2 cages were brought out, one had the chicken sliders missing and no arancini balls at all on either. The waitress was lovely and when we pointed out the chicken ones were missing she brought them, however they had no arancini balls in stock (this had been booked for weeks). This should have been mentioned when the meal was brought out and us offered an alternative, think they were hoping we wouldn't notice. Really poor. The drinks were just ok too. For £35 per head there are much better options in Leeds. Last round of drinks took 20 minutes to arrive, again not great! Seems standards may have dropped as the other photos I've seen on the brunches posted looked nothing like what we were brought. We won't be back that's for sure. Photo was the meat brunch before we even started, that was for 2 people obviously had the chicken and arancini...