Grey Street is the beating heart of Newcastle, a remarkable street that runs from the towering Grey’s Monument down towards Mosley Street lined with grand Georgian buildings and buzzing with life. Named one of Britain’s best streets by BBC Radio 4, Grey Street is home to all manner of restaurants, bars, galleries and businesses, and we’ve chosen a selection for you to explore.
Food
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Image: Las Iguanas
Grey Street boasts some of the finest and most varied restaurants in the city, with something to suit every palate, from chains to small independents. Las Iguanas is a fine example of the former, an outpost of the successful Latin American chain. With bottomless brunches and cocktail offers - as well as dishes from all over the continent - this lively, vibey place is as suited to a big night out as a family meal.
One branch of a small independent chain, Café Andaluz is a fine tapas bar that’s perfect for fun gatherings or pre-theatre meals. It offers a dizzying array of small plates from the traditional to the unusual (Chorizo y Butifarra Negra looks delicious) and there are some sharing platters to make it easy to choose! Ayla is a fine independent Indian restaurant, offering some tempting options you won’t find on most curry house menus – dishes like Hyderabadi Lamb Shank and Kerala Fish Curry.
Image: The Muddler
The Muddler has only been open a few years but has built itself a fine reputation for its pan-Asian food. Focused on Japanese and Chinese dishes, with detours into Thailand and beyond, the food at The Muddler is as good as the relaxing, classy ambience. Choosing to focus solely on Japan – and specifically sushi – Sushi Me Rollin’ is another relative newcomer but its fresh and tasty sushi is already a hit. There are dozens of uramakis, sashimis, nigiris and more, available individually or as platters, and there’s a great cocktail list to go with them.
If Italian food is more your thing, popular chain Zizzi is a reliable destination. The menu is long and impressive, taking in pasta, pizza, risottos, salads and some excellent desserts. When it comes to pizzas, Pizza Punks offer an avowedly anarchist take on this most proletarian favourite! The restaurant is lively and buzzing and the sourdough pizzas are excellent with a fine variety of toppings and the option to create your own with unlimited toppings!
Image: Leila Lily's
Right at the foot of Grey Street is one of the city’s most opulent, lavish restaurants - Leila Lily’s, a floral oasis with food to match. There’s an array of menus with a focus on British and pan-Asian cuisine, which means you could be dining on slow cooked pork belly or roast saddle of lamb kebab, oysters or a steak sandwich. They offer Sunday roasts, afternoon teas and some fine cocktails too. If you want something lighter, try Société Café Bar. It's only been open a few months but is already a familiar feature of the Grey Street culinary scene. It feels authentically Italian and varies its offering throughout the day: coffee and pastries in the morning, sandwiches at lunchtime, pizzas and cocktails in the evening.
Another recent arrival is Grey Owl, a new venture from the team behind Hibou Blanc. Alongside its extensive wine and cocktail lists, it offers a toothsome selection of boards – cheese, charcuterie, crudites – and some oysters too! By comparison Blakes is a veteran, providing the people of Newcastle with great coffee and sandwiches, breakfasts and snacks at keen prices.
Drink
Image: Dacantus
Grey Street is equally blessed when it comes to drinking haunts, from old school pubs to vibey bars. Take The Vineyard, a hugely popular wine bar for thirty years, known for its prime location, excellent cocktails and lively weekends when DJs throw down everything from R&B to salsa. Dacantus is a small, intimate bar with a deep love for gin in all its forms, offering a potential 90 combinations of carefully paired gin and tonic. There’s some tasty looking pinxtos and tapas to nibble too.
Barluga is the city centre outpost of a small chain and provides a sophisticated and relaxing bar to have a drink. Choose from their large and carefully curated wine list or try some of their cocktails or gins. Nitehawks, right next door to Theatre Royal, might be Grey Street’s smallest bar but it can certainly be its liveliest - especially at weekends when they squeeze DJs behind the bar and things kick off. And they take their cocktails very seriously too.
Image: Fitzgeralds
If pubs are more your style, Grey Street has some good ones, starting with Fitzgeralds - the flagship of the Sir John Fitzgerald group that marries an excellent location and fine building to some equally fine drinks. Or there’s The Charles Grey, a gem of a pub right by the monument with which it shares its name. It’s big and lively and it has some excellent sofas!
It’s hard to believe All Bar One was a radical concept when the chain started nearly thirty years ago, aiming to make pubs that were more welcoming to women. There’s certainly a demand for them – there’s nearly 60 branches now – and the Grey Street location is always bright and lively, with people taking advantage of the friendly atmosphere and excellent cocktails list.
Arts & Culture
Image: Theatre Royal
Of course, Grey Street is about more than just indulging: it can be edifying and enriching in other ways too, boasting as it does some fine cultural opportunities. Foremost – and most obvious, given that its grand façade dominates the top end of Grey Street – is Theatre Royal. This beautiful Grade I-listed theatre plays a big role in the city’s cultural landscape, bringing us everything from touring musical productions to Shakespeare, opera and more.
Just over the road, Castle Fine Art is a branch of the country’s leading art dealer (more than 50 galleries across the nation), offering a bright and vibrant range of contemporary art from big names and local talent. And right next door is Alexander Millar Fine Art, a relatively recent addition to the city and one of two galleries dedicated to the Scottish-born, North East residing artist - an immensely popular chronicler of nostalgic and romantic northern life.
Professional Services
Grey Street has a parallel life to that of eating, drinking and enjoying the arts. In the daytime it’s a thriving business district, with world-class professional services available – from law firms and property experts to banking, marketing companies and consulting. Samuel Philips Law has been operating for over a century, a full service law firm providing expert services to private clients, businesses and the public sector. For those seeking help with property, Mark Swatts Morse offer residential and commercial conveyancing, while Bradley Hall offer a one-stop shop property service - from estate agents and mortgages to surveyors and property management.
Similarly, Workman LLP offer a range of services to professional property concerns including property management, acquisitions, energy and sustainability and building technology. The Grey Street office of Bridgfords is one of several Newcastle branches of this near-two centuries old estate agency which offers agency services for renting or buying residential and commercial property. And finally Pegasus Group are a nationwide and independent development consultancy, offering expertise and advice on everything from infrastructure projects to environmental considerations.
Emerging from the Victorian cooperative moment and with some enshrined ethical principles, The Cooperative Bank is one of the UK’s biggest, and the Grey Street branch offers all the services you’d expect – commercial and personal banking, mortgages, insurance and the rest. Handelsbanken is a commercial bank with Swedish origins that has been rated Europe’s safest and places an emphasis on decentralised management and sustainability, while Rathbone Investment Management offers investment and wealth management to private and commercial concerns.
Grey Street is also home to a couple of cutting edge creative agencies: Blumilk offer digital brand development services, be it advertising, website construction, marketing or event management and nd Twist are an award-winning PR and marketing agency operating across a variety of sectors. Finally, Nigel Wright is the north’s leading recruitment consultancy, working to fill permanent and temporary roles in a wide range of specialist sectors.
Coming Soon...
Image: Grey Street
Despite its historic buildings and role as the traditional heart of the city, Grey Street is always in flux. New businesses appear all the time and you might have noticed some works taking place across the length of the street recently. These are part of the City Centre Transformation plans being enacted by Newcastle City Council to make Grey Street even more striking and attractive.
Happening as part of some city-wide developments, the work in Grey Street started at the beginning of the year and is focussed on increasing biodiversity and bringing more nature to the street. There will be more planters – including ‘rain garden’ planting beds - and more seats to encourage gathering. The road is being narrowed permanently with widened footpaths and space for outside dining, and all on-street parking is being removed to reduce traffic, while a northbound cycle lane is being added. The eventual plan is to make Grey Street fully pedestrianised and the centre of a green, carbon neutral city. You can read more about the plans here.
Grey Street is already a much loved part of our city, offering some of the finest restaurants, bars and cultural opportunities in the city whilst also supporting a busy business district. And with council plans improving its infrastructure all the time, it can only get better (and greener!).
Main Image: Theatre Royal by Jimmy McIntyre
