I must admit: Last month, when my husband and I first decided to take a train from London, England, where we were visiting family, to see some friends in Leeds, I wasn’t expecting much. All I knew about Leeds was that it was a former manufacturing hub in northern England, at one time home to mills and mines — not exactly enticing. Then I started reading up on it, and discovered that Lonely Planet had listed the Yorkshire city among their top 10 cities to visit in Europe in 2017, noting it had “shrugged off its industrial past.” I began to get excited, perhaps sensing that Leeds was about to prove to me just how wrong stereotypes can be.

From the moment we step off the train (Leeds is only about a two-hour journey from London’s King’s Cross station), we’re wowed. It’s a Thursday afternoon and the streets are packed, and though many of the buildings date from the Victorian era, the crowd is decidedly young and hip. (Leeds, with a population of about 760,000, is home to several universities.) We drop our bags off at the Leeds Marriott Hotel, located steps from the rail station on Boar Lane, one of central Leeds’ top streets for nightlife, and make our way along the curving streets and across the Aire River. Our lunch destination is The Tetley, a 1931 building originally used as the headquarters of Tetley brewery (its signature product, Tetley’s English Ale, has been around since 1822 and is ubiquitous in Yorkshire). It’s now a contemporary art gallery complex that we’ve heard has an excellent cafe. It doesn’t disappoint; Tetley Bar & Kitchen offers fresh and delicious selections (I have the rare-tuna salad; my husband goes for the fresh pea risotto), accompanied, of course, by delicious pints of Tetley’s English Ale.