Huddersfield's food scene is shaped more than anywhere by its South Asian communities. Pakistani and Bangladeshi families came to work in the textile mills from the 1950s onwards, and the culinary legacy is serious: this is a town where a good curry is expected rather than exceptional, and where the competition between restaurants keeps standards high. The area around Viaduct Street and the town centre has a concentration of South Asian restaurants and takeaways, with a range from no-frills to genuinely accomplished cooking.
The older local food tradition is plainer: pie and pea suppers, bread and dripping, and the sort of unreconstructed Yorkshire cooking that still turns up in market cafes and working men's clubs. The Huddersfield Market is a good place to find it, along with fresh produce and local cheese. As at most Northern England market towns, the market is a more honest guide to what people actually eat than the restaurants on the main drag.