Bedale, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This “pretty village gastropub in the Yorkshire Dales” has a “really lively buzz to it”, with “great food and service however busy it gets” – it’s a “firm family favourite” and fans reckon it serves “the best roast dinner in North Yorkshire” (with signature leeks mornay on the side).

“An unbelievable experience from start to finish – Josh Barnes has made the setting of sitting around an island within the kitchen an intimate yet fun occasion” at this chef’s table within an industrial unit whose purpose is the manufacture of quality sauces and stocks for use by other chefs around the country. Fans say his 14-course tasting menu – for £165 per person, and which takes five hours to serve – is “one of the best meals to be had, with amazing food, spot-on wine pairing and service that’s next-level!” Don’t be more than 30 minutes late – otherwise you forfeit your deposit and don’t get fed!

More solid reviews this year for the 40-seat restaurant within this attractive old inn, situated in a market town: “really enjoyable” modern bistro cooking wins praise as does the “great service” (including with kids in tow).

An “original ambience” contributes to the charm of this eccentrically decorated hotel-restaurant, bedecked in grandfather clocks, chandeliers, tubas and drums – and part of the 18th-century Crab Manor, where the quirky décor continues in five globe-trotting bedrooms. “Tasty” fish is the specialism, but there was also praise this year for the “nice game”. Service can still occasionally lag – “maybe short staffed”? In Summer 2024, they added a sun-trapped terrace, further amplifying the “nice surroundings”.

“A very romantic setting in such a fabulous hotel” helps intoxicate diners at this magnificent destination in fine grounds – a 17th-century house, with additional modern buildings nearby and ‘all mod cons’ sensitively introduced into a fine period setting. Shaun Rankin has been chef here since 2019 and delivers a very contemporary 14-course menu for £180 per person. If it all sounds too good to be true, it’s not, all reports are positive. Even so, some do question the value: “super place, but expensive compared to other places of this standard”.

“First-class” inn, set in the Yorkshire Dales, whose kitchen specialises in “exquisite, very fresh fish and seafood” – including a separate menu devoted to lobsters from Whitby – “if you’re in the area don’t miss it”. Reputed to have been a favourite watering hole of Yorkshire vet Alf Wight (better known as James Herriot), the Heifer is appropriately dog-friendly under the management of father-and-son David & Lewis Moss, owners for the past 20 years.

Darlington-born Ruth Hansom and her team have “the air of knowing exactly what they’re doing” at her new 16-seater in a picturesque North Yorks town, greeted by some early reporters as “the best restaurant in the area by miles” thanks to her “epic” cuisine. The Times’s Gilles Coren also waxed lyrical in his February 2025 review, with his ten-hour round trip to visit fully justified by a venue he described as “full of love and truth”. Overall the food rating in our annual diners’ poll sums to “very good” rather than “exceptional” though on reports of food that’s highly capable without quite discovering the “beauty and genius” discerned by Giles.

“Such a beautiful place” – a quintessential English country house hotel in the Dales with a pampering spa and a clutch of restaurants, of which this handsome dining room is one, and enlivened by tartan textiles; wood-panelled walls; and views out to the terrace and garden beyond. Reporters had nothing but praise for chef Craig Atchinson’s “wonderful” food – influenced by the region’s larder and focusing on unfussy classics plus meats cooked on the Josper grill.