Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Northallerton
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Northallerton restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 19 restaurants in Northallerton and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Northallerton restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Northallerton Restaurants
1. Origin Social
Fusion restaurant in Northallerton
2 Friarage Street - DL6
Living up to its name with a laid-back style and regular evening entertainment (such as ‘music bingo’, or the ‘call my bluff wine tasting challenge’) – this small-plates restaurant doesn’t take itself too seriously but delivers dishes that are much more interesting than you might anticipate.
2. The Old Deanery
British, Modern restaurant in Ripon
Minster Rd - HG4
Yorkshire reporters are very enthusiastic about the late 2023 reformatting of this property owned by Layton Hill Hotels, now pitching itself more as a ‘restaurant with rooms’, with chef Adam Jackson – formerly at the Black Swan in Oldstead – at the stoves. Nearly all accounts on its tasting menu are of “incredible cooking”: “we first sampled Adam’s food when in Oldstead, and this was our first visit here with food just as good as we have come to expect from chef Jackson, with a well-matched wine flight. Service was attentive, and the pacing of the tasting menu was just right. The building is lovely too with superb views over the garden”.
3. Samuel’s, Swinton Park Hotel & Spa
British, Modern restaurant in Masham
Swinton Park - HG4
Struan Macintyre now presides over the stoves in the flagship dining room of this stately country retreat. It has seen a number of head chefs come and go in recent times, but still inspires good all-round feedback following its significant refurb concluding earlier in the year. The menu format nowadays is that of an upscale brasserie (including grilled steak, fish and lobster) rather than the more ‘haute’ tasting formats of yesteryear. Elsewhere in the property, its plush lounges also win the thumbs up as a place to “live the high life in the afternoon” – “served in the traditional way in the drawing room, there is no better place in the area for afternoon tea”.
4. The Orangery, Rockliffe Hall
British, Modern restaurant in Darlington
James Close with wife Maria closed his acclaimed Co Durham restaurant the Raby Hunt (a regular on our UK Top 100 list) after 14 years and relaunched in the Orangery of nearby Rockliffe Hall in mid 2024, after our annual diners’ poll had ended. Initially billed as ‘A modern bistro by James Close’, from October 2024 the site has launched new tasting menus – ‘Expresssion’ (£105 per person) and ‘Experience’ (£170 per person) – that aim to take the diner on a ‘global culinary journey’. The ultimate aim is clearly to establish the dining room as one of the best in the UK.
5. Bettys
Afternoon tea restaurant in Northallerton
189a High St - DL7
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).
6. Crathorne Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Crathorne
2023 Review: “It’s still as good as ever at Eugene and Barbara McCoy’s country pub” say fans of this destination, ten minutes from Middlesbrough. “It’s one of the few places that still hold a traditional Beaujolais Day in November and has a waiting list of people wanting to come!”
7. The Bay Horse
British, Traditional restaurant in Hurworth
45 The Grn - DL2
With its pretty garden and handsomely fitted-out interior, this period gastropub has been no stranger to national awards lists since launching in 2008. It is rated consistently well in reports and even a sceptic whose commentary found it “perhaps a little overpriced” still rated it soundly across the board.
8. ChefsTable at TRUEfoods
British, Modern restaurant in Melmerby
9 Hallikeld Close - HG4
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”.
9. Crab & Lobster
Fish & seafood restaurant in Asenby
Dishforth Rd - YO7
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”.
10. 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).
11. The Hare Inn Restaurant
British, Modern restaurant in Scawton
Paul & Liz Jackson took on this converted pub – nowadays a restaurant with rooms – in 2012 and it continues to win strong feedback in our survey. One reporter mused whether the previously noted Asian inspirations “have been toned down somewhat”, but overall the food is “excellent” alongside “very attentive and precise service”.
12. The Black Swan
British, Modern restaurant in Oldstead
“Rock on Tommy” say fans of the Banks family’s famous destination out on the edge of the North York Moors near their 160-acre farm, which came to prominence in 2012 when Tommy Banks became the youngest chef in the UK ever to have won a Michelin star. Nowadays the kitchen is under the immediate stewardship of Alice Power, who has been in the kitchen since 2021 and took over in February 2024 as head chef here. At £175 per person in the evenings, it serves a “superb tasting menu” that’s “plate-lickingly good”: “full of flavour and creativity and beautifully plated”. That’s the majority view in any case, including a number of regulars who “adore eating here” and some of whom declare it their best meal of the year. But ratings were nearly dragged down by a minority for whom the experience is “over-engineered and overpriced” (“we had been looking forward to this and we are no strangers to tasting menus having eaten this year at Gravetye, Lympstone, Gidleigh, Whitebrook and Morston Hall; but, to our surprise many dishes were unbalanced with too many ingredients either overpowering a dish or leading to a clash of flavours. Service was, however, friendly and informal from delightful and knowledgeable staff”).
13. Stable Hearth Neapolitan Pizzeria & Enoteca
Italian restaurant in Darlington
Duke Street - DL3
2023 Review: “Great pizza menu served by lovely people” remains the verdict on this award-winning pizza-stop, whose numerous accolades and certifications promise a Neapolitan experience through and through: your selection is cooked at 400 degrees and will be ready in 90 seconds!
14. Oven
British, Modern restaurant in Darlington
30 Duke St - DL3
“Always buzzing”, this “family-run” fixture is very consistently praised in reports for its “great pizza menu” while also offering British and international classics. (After two decades, the owner-operators put it up for sale in summer 2024.)
15. Abbey Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Byland Abbey
“The views are stunning of the ruins of Byland abbey across the road” at this “delightful location” and Tommy Banks and family are “to be congratulated for rescuing the Abbey Inn and transforming it into a cosy thriving pub and restaurant”: after one short year, it is one of the top-20 most commented-on destinations in our annual diners’ poll. “It may serve pub classics, but they are done very well, with quality ingredients and presentation” and most reports acclaim “a fantastic renovation and a great reinvention”. Where disappointments occur, it’s “perhaps because expectations were too high” – at the end of the day this is a “popular and crowded” gastropub, and the odd foodie finds the menu a little “limited”. Most reports, though, are upbeat: “staff are very personable and knowledgeable” and the general reaction is that “from all the PR we just expected to encounter pub grub to a very high standard. And we did… but with a subtle Tommy Banks twist”. Top Menu Tip – “The Sunday Roast is very good, the addition of tasty pulled beef in the Yorkshire Pudding (or pulled pork for my partner) was a great idea”; “the Herdwick lamb shoulder main and artichoke sticky toffee pudding are highlights”.
16. The Blue Lion
British, Traditional restaurant in East Witton
“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!
17. The Stapylton Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Wass
“Great pub food and proper Yorkshire hospitality” are the defining features of Rob & Gill Thompson’s whitewashed inn, a fixture in the village for almost four centuries. “Everything is a big cut above the average – highly recommended”.
18. Hansom Restaurant and Wine Bar
restaurant in Bedale
7 - 9 North End - DL8
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.
19. The Owl at Hawnby
restaurant in Hawnby
Hilltop - YO62
2023 Review: “A superb find” in North Yorkshire, the former Inn at Hawnby has been smartly refurbed by Coastal & Country Inns as a luxury pub/restaurant with rooms. Meals are “well presented and taste superb”, while “nothing is too much trouble” for the friendly staff.
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