Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Middleham
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Middleham restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 10 restaurants in Middleham and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Middleham restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Middleham Restaurants
1. Samuel’s, Swinton Park Hotel & Spa
British, Modern restaurant in Masham
Swinton Park - HG4
“The formal dining room at Swinton Estate” – “a country house hotel in a beautiful setting that supplies much of its food from local sources” and its own 20,000 acres of grounds. Ruth Hansom has been in charge of the kitchens during 2023 – a year that saw solid all-round ratings for its ambitious cuisine – in advance of handing over to former Roux Scholar Nicole Benham-Corlette following a £500,000 refurb to complete in early 2024: part of the property’s ‘estate-to-plate’ philosophy which aims to reduce its carbon footprint to being neutral by 2030.
2. The Blue Lion
British, Traditional restaurant in East Witton
Part of the Marquess of Downshire’s Clifton Castle and Jervaulx estates, this well-known eighteenth-century Wensleydale inn is, apparently, a favourite watering hole of King Charles III. “Well worth a drive” for its high-quality cooking – the kitchen team come into their own during the game season when “they demonstrate their mastery of cooking grouse, in the traditional and best way” – and it’s “dog friendly too”.
3. The Sandpiper Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Leyburn
Market Place - DL8
Jonathan & Janine Harrison’s eighteenth-century inn in a Wensleydale market town continues to attract solid ratings all-round for its well-priced, modern bistro fare.
4. The Wensleydale Heifer
British, Modern restaurant in West Witton
Main St - DL8
In a “superb setting in the Dales”, father-and-son team Lewis & David Moss are behind this quintessential gastropub-with-rooms (including one room with a James Bond theme). “The team is superb, and the food (including seafood) speaks for itself as getting a table at short notice is extremely difficult”. NB – canines will love it (“the most dog-friendly pub I’ve ever visited!”), down to getting their very own sausages for brekko.
5. Yorebridge House
restaurant in Bainbridge
2022 Review: “The quality of the cooking and wine list step up yet another gear on every visit” – agree regulars at Dave & Charlotte Reilly’s Wensleydale boutique hotel, which they opened in a former school 15 years ago. Chef Dan Shotton “has always been ahead on local ingredients” and serves a stripped-down, contemporary menu. Guests are treated to a “fantastic welcome and service from start to finish”.
6. Sportsman’s Arms
British, Traditional restaurant in Wath-in-Nidderdale
The Sportsmans Arms - HG3
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.
7. The Coach House
British, Modern restaurant in Middleton Tyas
Middleton Lodge Estate, Kneeton Lane - DL10
2021 Review: Set in 200 acres of North Yorkshire, this informal bar/brasserie is an “interesting conversion of stables attached to the main house” (there is also a posher dining option here, ‘The Forge’). An all-day operation, it offers food that’s “reliable and well presented” from a series of menus, including breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner (with the focus on Mediterranean char grills).
8. Shaun Rankin at Grantley Hall
British, Modern restaurant in Grantley
This “handsome old house” makes a “brilliant” showcase for Yorkshire-born chef Shaun Rankin’s talents, honed by decades in Jersey and London. Valeria Sykes spent £70 million converting the country pile into a hotel, and given its almost “intimidating” level of luxury naturally “you may need a second mortgage before booking” (“from the iron gates policed by a uniformed guard, along a coiffed drive, we found a forecourt occupied by four Rolls-Royces, a Lamborghini and assorted top-model Range Rovers!”). On all accounts, though, it’s “quite outstanding in all respects”, not least results from the ten-course ‘Taste at Home’ menu for £145 per person.
9. Hansom Restaurant and Wine Bar
restaurant in Bedale
7 - 9 North End - DL8
Taking over the former site of Tom & Nellie's, the debut from rising
star chef Ruth Hansom, born in Darlington, trained at the Ritz and head
chef last through 2023 at luxury Swinton Park Hotel, nearby. With just
16 seats, diners are promised an 'epicurean adventure'.
10. Fletchers at Grantley Hall
British, Modern restaurant in Grantley
This ultra-opulent seventeenth-century country house was reborn as a hotel in 2019 replete with pool, snow room and altitude training chamber. Its many eateries include a haute operation by former Ormer chef Shaun Rankin – and this tartan-clad, baronial-style brasserie, praised this year for its “amazing welcome and lovely food” (especially patisserie, if you put your trust in Jay Rayner’s otherwise slightly mixed 2022 review).
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