Ripon Restaurant Guide

“An unbelievable experience from start to finish – Josh Barnes has made the setting of sitting around an island within the kitchen an intimate yet fun occasion” at this chef’s table within an industrial unit whose purpose is the manufacture of quality sauces and stocks for use by other chefs around the country. Fans say his 14-course tasting menu – for £165 per person, and which takes five hours to serve – is “one of the best meals to be had, with amazing food, spot-on wine pairing and service that’s next-level!” Don’t be more than 30 minutes late – otherwise you forfeit your deposit and don’t get fed!

“A very romantic setting in such a fabulous hotel” helps intoxicate diners at this magnificent destination in fine grounds – a 17th-century house, with additional modern buildings nearby and ‘all mod cons’ sensitively introduced into a fine period setting. Shaun Rankin has been chef here since 2019 and delivers a very contemporary 14-course menu for £180 per person. If it all sounds too good to be true, it’s not, all reports are positive. Even so, some do question the value: “super place, but expensive compared to other places of this standard”.

This “pretty village gastropub in the Yorkshire Dales” has a “really lively buzz to it”, with “great food and service however busy it gets” – it’s a “firm family favourite” and fans reckon it serves “the best roast dinner in North Yorkshire” (with signature leeks mornay on the side).

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”.

“A real Harrogate stalwart, with excellent Italian cooking” – this town-centre venture has won a decent local reputation over four decades – “kids are kept happy with pizzas and home-made ice-cream”, while the menu covers the classics from stuzzichini and antipasti to pasta and secondi piatti, and there’s a “mainly Italian” wine list that explores the regions.

The owners of this Cantonese spent an eye-watering £1.5m on its conversion and, while “the food is almost incidental to the splendour of the surroundings” (a “Victorian spa – full of wonderful tiling and soaring arches”), nevertheless “it’s not bad”, being “a notch above standard Chinese fare”, with the added joy that “they have a number of large round tables, so all the diners can enjoy the fun of working the lazy Susan”.

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.

“Consistently excellent pan-Asian food” draws an appreciative crowd to the Studley Hotel, where it celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Even the odd reporter who feels that “it’s not quite as good as it used to be” says “it’s still a superb restaurant”.

This veteran fish and seafood specialist has been a fixture of the Montpelier Quarter for 55 years – and has, remarkably, maintained its standards and independence, most recently under the Carter family, the owners since 2013. “The food is always very good and often excellent” by all accounts.

“A Yorkshire institution” that’s “not to be missed!” – These famous tea rooms owe their existence to Swiss founder Frederick Belmont, who opened them in 1919 and his family now also operate at four other locations across North Yorkshire. “A great, old school and classic experience” – they are “everyone’s favourite” and afternoon tea is “a real occasion” that’s “well worth queuing for”. Top Menu Tips – “scrumptious fat rascals” (a kind of Yorkshire scone).

“Such a beautiful place” – a quintessential English country house hotel in the Dales with a pampering spa and a clutch of restaurants, of which this handsome dining room is one, and enlivened by tartan textiles; wood-panelled walls; and views out to the terrace and garden beyond. Reporters had nothing but praise for chef Craig Atchinson’s “wonderful” food – influenced by the region’s larder and focusing on unfussy classics plus meats cooked on the Josper grill.

This “wonderfully decorated restaurant” offering a pan-Asian menu is one of five dining options at 17th-century Grantley Hall, where it is set in a modern pavilion overlooking the Japanese garden. Slick service (“they happily adapted the tasting menu to cater for our preferences”) adds to the occasion. Andy Lynam succeeded high-profile head chef Samira Effa last summer; she left after three-and-a-half years to head up her own private dining business.

“Excellent food and service in a garden centre”, where you eat “surrounded by giant plants in a large, airy room” – the “most unusual” formula (“but all the better for that”) at top chef Frances Atkins’s crowd-pleaser of a café. Those who visited her former venture – the posh Yorke Arms – report that the food is “just as good as it always was” there, whether you use it as a “favourite ‘brekkie-with-the girls’ haunt”, as per one reporter’s wife, or you go for tea and cake, when the “baking is something else” (dinner is also offered on Fridays). Add in “wonderful, attentive service” (staff “remember you even if it’s weeks since your last visit”) and “the entire place is a joy!”. (Note – the formula-price is for the supper menu: you eat in the daytime much more cheaply).

North Yorkshire’s ever-expanding Swinton Estate, now has a counter-dining option in the shape of this open kitchen countertop ‘watch-and-dine’ location, set in the estate’s cookery school. Former Galvin brothers head chef Josh Barnes presents a weekly changing menu – a keen forager himself, many of his ingredients are grown on the estate, with the rest sourced from nearby producers. It opened in 2024 but has yet to inspire feedback in our annual diners’ poll – reports please!

“A great addition to Harrogate” courtesy of Bradford-born Varun Kanna, who took over the space above Sukhothai in 2024, striking out on his own after a tutelage that included a stint at the famed Restaurant Sat Bains. The “food is unique with British produce, but having an Asian twist from Japan and India”, whether you go for the £32, three-course weekday set lunch or “very memorable” £85 per person tasting menu taking in the likes of crab curry and wagyu beef, and leaving diners – even “a couple who treat The Fat Duck as their local” – “full of praise”.