Masham Restaurant Guide

“This inn is a gem” overlooking a picture-postcard Dales village green, and “the food is excellent – on a warm sunny day it’s a joy to sit outside, eat well and relax”. Originally a shooting lodge, it became a drovers’ inn in 1840, and is within walking distance of Jervaulx Abbey where the Cistercians developed Wensleydale cheese!

“Oozing luxury (as it should do at this price!), but a tremendous experience, especially if you stay over” – Shaun Rankin wins exemplary feedback for this “stunning” and stately venue. The centrepiece of the experience is a “great taster menu” running to 14 dishes for £160 per person, produced with “real class and taste”.

On a small, rural industrial estate – within a unit dedicated to the making of top-quality sauces and stocks – this industrially located chef’s table makes an unusual venue for one of the better meals in the country. Over five hours, you experience a 14-course tasting menu with the chefs on hand to explain the sourcing and techniques used at each stage. Feedback is not vast, but continues to rate it as “exceptional all-round”.

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).

2021 Review: “Honest Yorkshire portions of high-quality local ingredients” set the tone at this remote seventeenth-century inn near Pateley Bridge, run by Ray & June Carter for more than 30 years. They serve copious amounts of game shot in the immediate area, and have fishing rights on the River Nidd. The décor either “needs a refresh” or is delightfully old-fashioned, according to your taste.

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”.

Stewarded by father-and-son duo David & Lewis Moss for two decades, this “fantastic Dales inn” (notably friendly to doggos) has a prime setting in the national park, and combines “friendly service” with “great food” that (despite the name) is notably fish-centric. If you want to make a night of it, they have pleasant themed rooms (including one dedicated to 007, to assuage fans irritated by the long delayed next instalment) and a private two-bedroom cottage just a few steps away.

An outpost of the famous tearoom chain that’s “great for brunch” as ever (afternoon tea and substantial mains also being on the agenda) and where – once you get past the queues – time itself seems to rewind, coaxed backwards by the “very professional staff”. “Prices have risen a lot” over the years “but this place will always feel like a treat!” – indeed it’s “a Yorkshire legend!” (even if this branch is not the most epic of the chain).

Ruth Hansom’s name has regularly cropped up in a series of launches in London in recent years, and till last year she was head chef at nearby luxury hotel, Swinton Park. Here the Darlington-born chef launched in 2024 under her own name, with a 16-seat venue occupying a stylishly refurbished venue on the market place of a picturesque North Yorks town. You can dip your toe in the water from the small plates menu or go for a more ambitious seven-course tasting menu at £75 per head. No reports as yet, but this should be one to watch.

“Trying very hard in a fabulous location” – the traditionally decorated dining room is part of an impressive country-house hotel and spa – a 17th-century manor in the Yorkshire Dales relaunched with little expense spared five years ago (and the AA Hotel of the Year in 2022/23). This luxe brasserie – with steak, lobster, chicken and other fare from the Josper grill – “maintains high standards” although the odd fan feels that it’s “good, but has further to go”. (See also Shaun Rankin at Grantley Hall).

“Chef Frances Atkins has found her mojo again at this lovely garden centre” near Harrogate – and her legion of fans, still mourning her 2020 departure from the legendary Yorke Arms, are thrilled: “I can’t believe how exciting it is to watch Frances Atkins in the open kitchen preparing my lunch!”. What you get is breakfast, lunch, tea and occasionally supper of “Michelin-quality food in interesting combinations, using quality ingredients, but without the pretensions of a star”. It’s “a simple, clean and tidy venue”, “peaceful and efficient, with a good ambience” – “this is how you run a restaurant”.