TagGreengates

Pippo’s: the new Italian restaurant in Greengates, Bradford

I’ve had a lot of hits to my website recently from people wondering about Pippo’s, the new Italian restaurant at the Greengates crossroads in Bradford.

I’m not in any way affiliated with them, I was just someone (like you people searching for it), looking for info about it. However, since they don’t seem to have any details online yet, I’ll post what I know:

  • They opened in mid-November 2011.
  • They’re open every evening (I think) and at lunchtimes too.
  • The lunch menu is a cut down version of the main menu but still pretty extensive and cheaper: £4.95 a dish.
  • The evening menu features all the pasta, pizza and Secondi Piatti dishes you’d expect from a Ristorante Italiano ;). Lots of choice.
  • When we went, in the second week of opening, there were some issues with card payments and licensing for alcohol (they were happy for people to BYO though). There is still a sign on the door suggesting one or other is problem – the Asda around the corner can help with both problems (open til 8pm, 24hr cash machine).
  • Their phone number is 01274 270802
  • Their postcode (if you need to sat nav it) is BD10 0RB
  • There is a small car park between the restaurant and the small memorial garden with the angel in it.

Review

We moved from reasonably central Leeds to Greengates two years ago and are sorely missing having a selection of fab restaurants on our doorstep – so were very happy earlier in the autumn when we saw that the old Seven Stars Inn was being renovated into an Italian restaurant. And we were very glad to see that it was another local independent business, rather than something else like Costa. (We do go to Kiplings and Kebabish sometimes but prefer our curries elsewhere, and even curry-fiend like us need some variety sometimes!)

The people behind Pippo’s have done a decent conversion job – it’s clean, bright and airy now, with nice, simple wooden furniture. It’s not the most hyper-stylish restaurant ever but it’s not trying to be. To compare it to places in Leeds, it’s old school like Pietro’s in Headingley used to be (we’ve not been to its new incarnation Giorgio’s) or that place that used to be upstairs opposite WH Smith in the town centre (Fiore’s?) rather than the fancy wild-mushrooms-and-truffle-oil places like Salvo’s or Gusto, or the razzle-dazzle of Bibis. I do like love Salvo’s but every now and then, a girl needs a large amount of tomato & cheese – and Pippo’s is perfect for that.
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John & Lily-dog in the horses’ field

The woods at the end of our garden are awesome. AWESOME. They’re a mixture of ancient woodland & newer (early 20th century) plantings. They have a stream, countless springs and a canal running through/next to them. Deer, ducks and pheasants are spotted with surprising regularity and horses & cows graze on the farmland at the edges. They were a hive of industry 100+ years ago: the old quarry cliffs remain exposed, some of the dug-outs are still massive holes in the dirt, and there are the mysterious remains of structures everywhere. They were a leisure spot back then too: the shape of a large pond with man-made islands and a mini-jetty remains, and there are stone-walled lined paths & steps throughout. More recently, the eastern end hosted a prisoner of war camp (for Italian prisoners in WW2) and a fireworks factory that exploded in the 1950s or thereabouts – the shells of the buildings remain. We’ve walked in the woods almost daily for 15 months now and we regularly find new bits that we haven’t seen before. As I said, AWESOME.

Today though, we didn’t walk far – just to the horses field. Lily sprained her leg on Monday so we wanted to take it easier on her behalf. Also, we’re lazy and it was hot.

The horses’ field is down near the canal. This is the view from about halfway across the field – you can see the bridge over the canal on the left.

This is the view from the same spot facing the other way – speckled with daisies, buttercups and pink clover flowers at the moment.

(I forgot to take any pictures until I was halfway across the field – a genuine mistake but admittedly, there is a bit of a blot on the landscape when looking across the whole field from the woods: a red corrugated steel warehouse, mostly covered with trees but noticeable all the same.)

While I was taking pictures, John and Lily had a little rest in the sun:

A sunny day in a field with her favourite humans, after a dunk in the beck? Lily got a little blissed out:

Make that a lot blissed out:

Everyone got quite comfy:

Until …

There is a reason we call it the horses field… They came over to investigate/bully us out of there. So we picked ourselves up and headed back into the woods and home.

A year ago today – six beautiful things from our house move

It’s a year today since we moved into our new home. I only started 3BTing a couple of months after the move so only have just a few tweets to mark the day — I think a few hindsight 3BTs are in order ;)

1. It’s strange to see our things, the items that decorate our lives, out of context, packed Tetris-style onto the van.

2. John drives us and the cats over ahead of the van. They’ve been kept out of the way in the bedroom all day over there and here, they’re shut away in the bathroom. Taking in cushions and duvets that smell like us, I join them and after a moment’s hesitations, they’re out of the carry boxes and exploring as a group: in the bath, on the window sills and peering in the mirror expecting to see out then turning around to realise it’s a reflection of the same room.

3. I leave the cats to help empty the van and provide desperately required cups of tea. Two of the movers stand, cups in hands, looking out of the living room window, gazing out at the tree line and down into the woods. “Nice, innit?” I hear one of them say to the other. (I’ve seen that exact scene – same stances, same stares – repeated several times over the last year, the position of the window just seems to demand it.)

4. I return to the bathroom and two of the cats are gone! Gone! They’d been fine in this strange room in this strange house while I’d been there but when I’d left them, they’d got frightened. Boron is alone, curled up on the duvet and I search for the others, acutely aware of the open doors and windows downstairs. I find Carbon back in his usually much-loathed carry box but his sister is still missing. I scrabble around looking for her, calling her name. Then I notice that the towels hanging over the radiator look plumper than usual. I touch the rounding and a shiny black nose appears out of the far end.

5. Once the movers are gone and the house is secure, we let the cats creep out of the bathroom. We herd them into the bedroom – they sniff around and jump on the dresser. Then someone, Boron I think it was, leads the charge downstairs and into the dining room. Blasé now, they head straight to the living room door – they want to see more, more!

6. We unpack some key boxes – the kitchen stuff, our clothes – then after weeks of long days, we allow ourselves to relax. The cats join us on the sofa – as I’d predicted “home” for them is the sofa and us – then at bedtime, they follow us up the stairs to our mattress on the floor. In the morning, we’ll all wake up dazzled by the morning sun upon us and I’ll tell the cats “sun! in your bed! how ace is that?”. It’s really pretty ace.

After the chicken run, stepping stone, repeating, evening walk, giveaway smell

1. I sneak back into bed and facing each other, we hold hands inbetween our chests. The dog snuggles her nose into the inverted v-shaped space between our arms.

2. I half open my eyes when I feel the cat step off me. I see her use the sleeping dog as a stepping stone to get to her dad. After she’s settled down on the other side of the bed, Lily finally reacts, looking first at the cat then at me. “Yes, I saw it,” I whisper.

3. I finally meet one of our neighbours for the first time. We chat chickens and growing things. A dog bark in the distance calls me away but just before I go, I think to introduce myself. As I walk away, I hear him repeating my name to himself as a memory aid.

4. We – Lily, John & I – take an evening walk in Thackley Woods. The world is still, the only sounds bird call & distant whinnying and over Baildon’s hills, the sunset is a hazy red.

5. The cat has been sleeping in the washing again. When she jumps on my knee, she smells line-fresh.

Louisa & Lily’s walk in West Wood

While John was away at a wedding, Louisa and Lily went for a walk in West Wood.

They found a strange metal pond.

A field.

field

Remains of buildings.

concrete-structure

Interesting mushrooms.

fungi1

fungi2

little-wheel-fungi

Some cows.

cows

And some mud.

lily-mud

A lot of mud.

3BT – Ukepedia lives again!, buttery light, buttery taste

1. When we wake up, there is an email waiting for us — a video submission for Ukepedia. We smile and laugh as James sings about Fozzie Bear, delighted at the effort he’s put in (8 minutes, 16 seconds!) and amused by how it came about.

2. The sun is setting as I walk back from the post office and the old stone cottages at the other end of the road look glorious in the warm light.

3. The tart is sharp to start but that fades away to leave behind a soft, buttery conclusion.