Ripponden Restaurant Guide

“Gosh, that was good!!” – Mark Kemp’s “relaxed small plates restaurant in Sowerby Bridge” (a converted boozer) excites nothing but full-on raves from reporters for its “welcoming environment” and “refreshing”, “unfailingly impressive” food at “incredible value prices”. One brave Lancastrian who “put his armour on and risked a trip to Yorkshire to sneak in a Wednesday lunch” only wishes his own county had somewhere like this – an unusual outfit which offers “randomly eclectic, tapas-y food taking in Spain, Yorkshire and Southeast Asia”. “Service is just how you want it” too – “never intrusive but at your elbow when you do”. Top Menu Tip – “Cauliflower and manchego croquetas were merely a foil to an eye-opening Worcestershire sauce caramel; Bahn me prawn toasts are a really superb dish; Moroccan spiced lamb is pulled and comes with pillowy maneesh bread, a rather heavy hummus, dee-licous giant couscous, lightly pickled onions and other stuff. Best posh kebab I’ve had in a long time”.

2024 Review: Chef-patron Eric Paxman trained under Marco Pierre White in London and Bill Granger in Australia, and has cooked for luminaries including Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vowed ‘I’ll be back’ – a sentiment shared by numerous guests at the venture he opened in his hometown 14 years ago. “Lunch and early-bird evening specials are an exceptional bargain”.

The second pizza project from couple Kate & Jim Morgan, whose previous venture, Rudy’s Pizza in Manchester, became such a runaway success that the duo sold it to hospitality giants Mission Mars in 2017 (albeit remaining on as stakeholders as it has spiralled into a nationwide chain). As per its famous predecessor, the order of the day is “perfect pizza” of Neapolitan bent, cooked for just sixty seconds to achieve a perfectly blistered crust – “but don’t skimp on the starters”, which might include arancini and deep-fried olives with house sausage.