At Akbar's the naan arrives on a metal stand taller than the table, hanging over the karahis like a flag. It is a good way to discover whether your group has over-ordered. Bradford has held the title of Curry Capital of Britain six years running, with more than two hundred South Asian restaurants, and the naan is not the only place where the city declines to do things by halves.
The style here is Kashmiri and Punjabi — karahis cooked in the pan, tandoor breads, chargrilled seekh kebabs and lamb chops. The Kashmir, at 27 Morley Street, is the oldest of them; the sign says 1958, the family says it opened as a meeting place around 1952, a home from home for men newly arrived from Pakistan before the students found it. It is still run by the same brothers, still a cellar, still bring-your-own, and the fish karahi is about twelve pounds. The Sweet Centre on Lumb Lane began in 1964 as a halal butcher's and is now known for seekh kebabs and chana puri. Mumtaz and MyLahore are the polished end of the same tradition — halal, no alcohol; Mumtaz does halwa puri and fresh chai for breakfast. Worth checking which serve drink before you book a group in.
For a pint you go into the centre, because the pubs are all here and nowhere near Saltaire — Titus Salt built his model village in 1851 without a single one, being a temperance man; the village's bar culture is a modern arrival. The Record Café on North Parade calls itself the holy trinity of ale, ham and vinyl: real ales downstairs, a Spanish charcuterie counter, and a record shop on the mezzanine you can actually buy from. The Sparrow, a few doors along, is owned by Kirkstall Brewery and pours six handpumps. The Corn Dolly has more than a thousand pumpclips on the walls and an 80s jukebox. Underneath a city-centre road, a maze of tunnels forgotten for decades reopened in 2016 as Sunbridge Wells, a warren of small bars and shops.
Saltaire is the place to stay if you want quiet. It is a complete Victorian village on the River Aire, twelve minutes north on the Airedale line, over 800 stone houses laid out in Italian Renaissance style and inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2001. Salts Mill, the vast 1853 building at its heart, stopped spinning wool in 1986 and now holds one of the best collections of David Hockney anywhere — Hockney was born in Bradford — and it is free to walk in. Saltaire station sits directly opposite the door.
Much of Bradford is free, in fact. The National Science and Media Museum has the first IMAX screen opened in Europe and the only cinema in the world that can still show three-strip Cinerama. Cartwright Hall in Lister Park is a free art gallery with more Hockney and a Mughal water garden outside. The Wool Exchange, Venetian Gothic and built for the wool merchants in the 1860s, is now a Waterstones.
Outside the museum stands a statue of J.B. Priestley, the city he called Bruddersford spread out in front of him.