Explore Dean Street With Us

For a fairly short thoroughfare, Newcastle's Dean Street packs a great deal into a small area. It’s also one of the city’s steepest! Connecting Grey Street at the top to the Side (and thus Quayside) at the bottom, it has a lot to offer. Here’s some of the best places to eat, drink and shop on Dean Street.

Food

Kaltur is a family-run restaurant – one of two in the city – that offers phenomenal, often innovative cuisine from the Iberian peninsula. The menu is short but wonderful - cheese and charcuterie boards, classic and more experimental tapas - and some really well-chosen sherries on their carefully curated drinks list.

Just up the hill (or across the Med) you’ll find Marco Polo, a Newcastle favourite for nearly 50 years. The dining area – brickwork and banquettes – feels as classic as the menu, which offers all the pizza, pasta and risotto options you’d expect (they also offer a very good value fixed price menu).

And across the road there’s another great Italian joint, Topolino, which again offers a traditional range of dishes but also has a fine selection of steaks for the more carnivorous diner. They have a very affordable ‘happy hour’ menu too, and offer takeaways.

Right next door – and in a completely different vein – you’ll find Soju & Goji, a fairly new and very tempting Korean BBQ restaurant. If you’re not familiar with how Korean BBQs work, you should definitely go and try it out: you select your protein and veg and then cook it on the gas stove built into your table! It’s fun and very tasty. If that feels like hard work there are plenty of other dishes served ready to eat, and although most of them will be unfamiliar, they’re very appealing.

PureKnead is the artisan bakery Newcastle was waiting for, offering a great range of breads made the old way (and additive free, of course) alongside a fine selection of cakes, pastries and sandwiches to take away. The coffee is excellent too, and they even stock a range of gifts and jewellery.

Doyle’s of Dean Street is another great sandwich bar, a big hit with a lot of the office workers in the area because of its fresh, tasty hot and cold sandwiches and wraps, salads, baked potatoes and the rest. They can also cater for meetings or working lunches.

Drink

Right at the foot of Dean Street, you’ll find Colonel Porter’s Emporium, a fun bar full of curios that's named and themed in honour of the creator of Newcastle Brown Ale (which they serve in the traditional way). They’re also very keen on rums, gins and cocktails and even offer a Tipsy Tea. All this plus live music every day of the week and big-name house and disco DJs on Saturdays at The Colonel’s House.  

From the bottom of the street to top of the city, ABOVE is a classy bar with a spectacular rooftop terrace that offers amazing views of Newcastle. There’s a global menu of small plates, a delicious cocktail list and very often live acts or DJs to bring the party.

BrewDog bars need no introduction – this Scottish brand has spread like wildfire since 2007, and the Newcastle branch opened in 2012. They offer a big range of craft beers, of course (usually around 25 on draught, including a rotating selection of guest beers), but also some tasty pizzas (half of which are veggie/vegan), and your dog is so welcome they’ll even throw a Dog Pawty!

The newest kid on the Dean Street block is Four Quarters, the latest arcade-themed bar in the city. As well as a great selection of often locally-brewed craft beer, they offer some arcade game-themed cocktails (Donkey Kong Tropical Punch, anyone?) and pizzas too. And of course, around 30 classic arcade and video games.

Shopping

Dean Street is so steep that it feels entirely appropriate that there’s a mountain climbing shop halfway up! LD Mountain Centre is a temple of carabiners, rucksacks, bivvy bags and crampons and has been operating since 1966. The staff’s knowledge is as vast as their stock of camping, climbing, hiking and sports equipment - everything you need to make it up the perilous incline to Grey Street.

If you’d rather shred than sled, head to PMT Newcastle, the Newcastle branch of a nationwide chain offering everything a musician, producer or sound engineer needs. From guitars to keyboards, amps to mixing desks, cables to plectrums, PMT probably has everything you’d need to put on a stadium gig. They have plenty of pre-owned stock too!

Of course, whether your foot is on the monitor or strapped to a snowboard, you’ll want your hair to be on point, which is where City Crew Hair comes in. They’ve been lowering ears since 2007 and have a great reputation for sick fades and fresh styles at affordable prices.

Whether you need a trim, a wah wah pedal, a sourdough loaf or a bottle of ‘dog’, Dean Street really does have everything. Brave its slopes for some of the best eating, drinking and shopping Newcastle has to offer.