North Yorkshire, Sandwiches, Cakes, Etc Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: This “quirky café with wonderful cinnamon buns and waffles” offers a “real taste of Scandinavia in Harrogate”. It’s “very popular with yummy-mummies in the morning so can get a little loud, but you can buy all the baked goods from their shop just by the theatre”. Owner Paul Rawlinson’s Scandi restaurant Norse is still missed, five years after its closure.

A Yorkshire “legend” – “the epitome of an old-fashioned afternoon tea room, and with a great pianist too”. “You might have a long wait in the queue to get in, but it’s worth it” for the “delicious pastries and well-filled sandwiches” served at this flagship of a family-owned business founded in 1919, now with five venues across North Yorkshire. “Places that are described as an ‘institution’ are often a stuffy, stilted let-down – Betty’s is none of the above”: “even the fish ’n’ chips are stylish”.

2021 Review: “Never had a bad meal”, say fans of this “favourite” tiny bistro, off the Gillygate, serving “excellent ingredients prepared with some imagination”. It can feel “rather cramped inside”, though. Top Tip: “go for the garden room in summer, under the medieval city wall”.

This deli-café in a former grocer’s shop is “worth the queue” for a coffee and a treat, while the “surf ’n’ turf lunch is also very good”. Success has led to spinoffs in Helmsley and, last year, in Easingwold (where it’s called OPC after the old police cells on the premises).

“An institution in York, and a ‘must’ on any visit to the city” – this central branch of Bettys dates from 1936, with an interior inspired by the ocean liner Queen Mary, and its Belmont Room – named after Frederick Belmont, the Swiss confectioner who founded the Harrogate original in 1919 – is “a real treat”. “There’s no place like Bettys if you want to enjoy a classic afternoon tea with as many of the trimmings as you want” – “the quality of the food offering is never in doubt but what is exceptional is the professionalism and efficiency of the staff”.

2023 Review: “Afternoon tea IS Bettys!". This old-fashioned tearoom is “always worth the queue” for its epic teas and fine spreads of pastries and sarnies. It’s also “a great place to meet over a very good breakfast. Coffee, understandably, is excellent!”