'It couldn't have been anywhere else but Leeds': How Bundobust became a city institution

Ask anyone who's spent time eating and drinking in Leeds over the last decade and Bundobust will almost certainly crop up.

The Indian street food and craft beer specialist on Mill Hill has become a bona fide city institution. This year it was crowned Best Street Food at the Yorkshire Evening Post's Oliver Awards.

For co-founder Mayur Patel, that recognition means more than another trophy in the cabinet.

"We're always super excited for the Oliver Awards," he told the YEP.

"Our industry and everything that we've created has been Leeds-born, so it's very, very personal to me. Leeds is home," he added.

"It always helps to make sure that we're not forgotten about. As we become more established, we're a brand that's well known, but also still under the radar to many. So it's good to be out there and get that recognition."

Today, Bundobust is a busy walk-in restaurant with its own brewery and sites in Manchester and Liverpool, but it began in a very Leeds way - through pop-ups, beer festivals and borrowed space.

Bradford-born Mayur founded Bundobust with beer expert Marko Husak. He spent his childhood in his parents' restaurant, Prashad, now run by his brother and sister-in-law.

But it was Leeds that gave them their break.

"When we were setting up the idea of Bundo and what it was going to be, it was the only city that gave us an opportunity to do some pop-ups," Mayur explained. "We had Belgrave Music Hall, we had Nation of Shopkeepers when that was just opening, we had a couple of the beer festivals. Leeds Beer Festival was always kind of the benchmark start of Bundo."

Over the course of a year, those events allowed them to test their food before a site on Mill Hill became available through a friend and customer.

"It couldn't have been anywhere else but Leeds," Mayur said. "It wasn't like, 'Oh, where are we going to open, what city?' It was always going to be this. Basically, Bundobust was born here."

Bundobust's menu is inspired by Indian street food, but it doesn't fit the traditional curry house mould.

"Personally, I rarely get curries," Mayur said. "A lot of people think of Indian food and think it needs a naan, it needs rice, it needs a curry - and that's Indian food. Whereas we've got two to three dishes on our menu that you'd classify as curries. The rest of it is completely textural - hot, cold, sour, sweet."

While the menu has evolved over the years, one dish has remained unchanged.

"You should definitely try Bundo Chaat," he insisted. "The tamarind chutney takes about eight hours to make - super, super flavour-intensive.

"You've got tamarind, which is sour; you've got yoghurt, which is sweet; you've got crispy pastry; you've got sev noodles. The dish is cold, so every layer of flavour is kind of a shock... it's just got everything."

Another standout is the Gobi Manchurian wings, inspired by Indo-Chinese cooking.

"You've got two of the biggest populations in the world bordering each other, so that whole area of mashing up these two cuisines is super fun," Mayur said. "You've got loads of umami, cabbage, cauliflower, soy... super savoury with a really nice hot, sour, sweet sauce."

Many diners only realise at the end of their meal that Bundobust is entirely vegetarian.

"Genuinely, our customers are probably 90 per cent not vegetarian," Mayur said. "As soon as you hear that or you see that, people who aren't vegetarian won't come because it's like, 'Oh well, I'm going to miss out on something.' That's the bit I would love to change.

"We love the fact that when someone eats something, they didn't realise. At the end of the meal they're like, 'Hang on a second, there was no meat in here.' That's the gold standard rubber stamp I'd like to get from most people."

Despite now having four sites, including a brewery in Manchester, Bundobust hasn't left its street food roots behind. The team still pops up at events across the region, including Leeds Beer Festival and Kirkstall Abbey.

"Honestly I think it's just fun," he said. "It means that we're able to get out on sites and look at some of the feedback that we're getting from customers."

Events, he added, are about more than just extra covers.

"We're quite selective with the events that we do. We want to do them where they fit what we're about, rather than just be a street food trader," he explained. "Our focus is the site, and then events are more about who we can introduce to Bundo versus just selling food."

As for what's next for Bundobust, the team is quietly ambitious.

"We're just cracking on," Mayur said. "We've got a fantastic team and we're constantly moving forward. We're not sure which direction we might go, but we certainly want to open more Bundos.

"We're looking at all options at the moment, but for sure we'd like to bring more Bundos to more people."