Aughton Restaurant Guide

This 250-year-old Lune Valley gastroboozer-with-rooms has the claim to fame of having appeared on Ramsay’s ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ back in 2006. Fast-forward 17 years and several owners, and it’s in the hands of The Oakman Group, and now, say fans, “always worth a visit” – being “probably the best place to go for fish in the Lancaster area” (quite the turnaround, then!).

2022 Review: An “interesting, imaginative menu” giving a modern British twist to Mediterranean cooking “caters for all tastes” at this pub, which features an attractive contemporary interior. “Desserts are especially delicious.”

This “big and busy” Lune Valley link in the Brunning & Price chain – a “well presented” 18th-century inn a few miles from the Cumbrian and Yorkshire borders – “deserves to be as popular as it is”; “the menu is carefully thought out” (the “best dish is crispy beef salad”, but vegans are also accommodated) and “they always look after you well” to boot.

The “best afternoon tea ever” – arguably the main event at this “Art Deco masterpiece” of a hotel, in a “stunning location” overlooking Morecambe Bay. The food in the dining room – the ‘Sun Terrace’ – is “always enjoyable”, too; although the odd cynic says “you’re paying for the views”.

“Craig Wilkinson continues to offer well-above-average, classically inspired food at his pub in the eponymous hamlet of Bay Horse, opposite what was once the similarly eponymous Bay Horse station on the West Coast Main Line”. Even those who have been “dining there for circa 20 years” (Wilkinson’s family has owned the venue even longer) just “cannot fault it” – and, “whether you’re sat in the bar area mixing with the locals, dining in the restaurant, or enjoying a drink in the beautiful garden”, the “atmosphere is fantastic” too.

2022 Review: This “delightful tea shop, delicatessen and tea merchants on the main route into Grange” is “every bit as good as Betty’s” – say fans of its “home-made breads, pastries and cakes to die for”. “Large windows give great views across the ornamental gardens”, and “there’s a real buzz from the coming and going of locals, visitors and efficient, knowledgeable staff”.

“Excellent dinners and amazing breakfasts” both win praise for Simon Rogan’s less formal venue in a beamed cottage just around the corner from his famous foodie temple (and here you can also stay the night). It was responsible for some excellent meals this year, and while the food is in a more straightforward mould than L’Enclume, it’s above-par by the standards of a Cumbrian neighbourhood restaurant. That said, it doesn‘t inspire poetic feedback – diners merely think it’s very good at what it does.

“It is a 6-6-6 in my view!” – Simon Rogan’s converted blacksmith’s workshop on the southern edge of the Lake District towards Morecambe Bay is still riding high on its elevation in 2022 to three Michelin stars: the first UK restaurant north of Watford Gap to have entered the world’s top tier, according to the ‘Guide Rouge’. Most reports of the many we receive (it’s one of the top-20 most commented-on destinations in our annual diners’ poll outside London) say such acclaim is fully justified, with more than one diner this year describing eating here the “best meal of my life, as simple as that!”. “Waiters move as though choreographed in a ballet” (“they even spotted that I was left handed and so laid out my place settings to suit me!”) and deliver “gastronomic paradise” overseen day-to-day by head chef, Paul Burgalières, who produces a 15-course menu for £250 per person, with much of the produce coming from Simon’s nearby ‘Our Farm’. Niggles? Concerns about prices have risen somewhat year on year. There is also a fear among a small minority that the experience risks becoming so “polished to perfection” as to be almost “perfunctory”. The main take-away though? “Simply the best!”

“All the style of next door with just 6 of you” – that’s the deal at Simon Rogan’s ‘behind the scenes’ dining experience at his Lakeland legend, where you eat surrounded by chefs in the development kitchen with ongoing explanations about the culinary techniques underpinning the restaurant and how they work in coordination with their own ‘Our Farm’ smallholding nearby. All reports suggest it lives up to the experience next door, but with a different ‘insider’ spin.

“A dog-friendly bar with good beer… an outstanding restaurant… and just up the road from my house!” – so says one delighted Lake District local about Kevin & Nicola Tickle’s “staggeringly good” pub, where a simpler lunchtime menu gives way at night to a ten-course offering for £120 per head. Ratings went from strength to strength here this year as a couple of diners nominated it as their best meal of the year. Kevin spent 10 years at nearby L’Enclume and was also head chef at Forest Side in Grasmere.

Run by the Reynolds family for over two decades, this “lovely hotel” in the Yorkshire Dales National Park is imminently “suitable as a touring base” for the gorgeous countryside in these parts. Despite its considerable ambitions in the cooking stakes (a ten-course tasting menu is amongst the offer, which has received a coveted 3 ‘AA’ Rosettes), it remains a “friendly and relaxed” sort of place.

“The huge success of recent years has done little to change anything” according to the many fans of this “still-cosy, unpretentious and pubby” venue in the Forest of Bowland, whose renown has grown continuously over the years to become one of the top 100 most commented-on destinations outside London in our annual diners’ poll (although, “maybe, at times, those who are just drinking are more likely to be banished to the garden now”). “Really caring” staff are “led by the indefatigable bearer of dog treats for all canine guests, AJ” and create “an atmosphere that celebrates rather than reveres the food”. The main founder of the feast is chef Stosie Madi, whose food “continues to be a touchstone of what’s in season, with much being foraged by Stosie and her assistant in the kitchen, Vlad” (“eg. wonderful local mushrooms and blackberries on an autumn visit”). “In season, game is plentiful and comes from local shoots and farmers”, and fans say that pies here remain a “must try”. “As well as being able to judge cooking of meat and fish over charcoal perfectly, Madi continues to show a very deft hand with desserts, and knows very well why classics such as Mont Blanc or Rum Baba (both exemplary) are classics”. Perhaps inevitably, the establishment’s tear-away growing success inspires some push-back amongst a growing minority of reporters who say that “we keep trying it as it gets rave reviews, but just do not get it how it wins so many awards”. More common though still are those who feel that “the quality is so high, so no complaints!”. Top Menu Tip – “Among other dishes we had a silky chicken liver parfait, a steak that bettered a recent trip to Hawksmoor, a perfect hollandaise sauce, and a Basque cheesecake with local rhubarb that was simply perfect”.

In its current format since 1984 (and originally built in, er, 1688), this pub and restaurant won renewed interest and good all-round feedback in our annual diners’ poll, in part down to a favourable December 2023 visit from The Observer’s Jay Rayner: he praised a listed building that’s “deliciously seasoned with history” and “seriously impressive”, proper “cheek-slapping, belly-pleasing” food – notwithstanding being massively let down by its décor and “eye-achingly awful” website.