Treats for food lovers’ at five of our favourite hotels in Yorkshire
The best hotels are cosseting places where friendly folk make you feel welcome and well fed. So, we’ve rounded up five of our favourites in Yorkshire, from super-stylish boutique retreats to down-to-earth, cosy places that all have one thing in common – sublime food. Come for fine dining and hearty stews, snazzy cocktails and real ale, always with a focus on homegrown and locally sourced produce that make the menus sing. Eat to your heart’s content, then roll upstairs to bed. Walk it all off the next day over hills and dales.
Middleton Lodge
This super-stylish hotel comes with lovely rooms, a fine courtyard, fabulous food – some home-grown, much from Yorkshire – and a cool restaurant to eat in. You can dine outdoors even in winter, under an awning with a huge firepit and heaters. In summer, life spills onto the courtyard for lunch in the sun, but step through the arched glass doors and find a spectacular restaurant open to the rafters. There’s a funky bar for cocktails, an open fire and a sitting room for guests that opens onto a terrace. Bedrooms are top notch and there are funky huts in the grounds as well as a spa with treatment rooms. The Dales wait to the west, the Moors to the east for bracing walks.
Inspector Alice: Middleton Lodge is the sort of place you’ll never want to leave. We loved borrowing wellies to walk in the estate, and drinking cocktails next to the fire pit.
The Burgoyne Hotel
Start with pre-dinner drinks and canapés then à la carte in the smart, one-rosette 1783 Bar and Restaurant, a fine dining experience showcasing the best seasonal, homegrown and locally produced Yorkshire produce. It’s utterly peaceful here and you’re looked after beautifully by a friendly team at this elegant boutique hotel with country smart bedrooms and glorious views of the Dales. Set up camp after dinner in the lounge in front of a roaring open fire where there are books, games and magazines. Bring bikes or hire them from two minutes away and head to the hills. Stroll along the river or visit the craft shops in town, return to a big tea of sandwiches and scones with cream.
Guest Margaret: We went to the restaurant to celebrate my husband’s 65th birthday, the service, staff and food were all excellent, a wonderful dining experience.
Beverley Arms
This 17th-century coaching inn has been welcoming visitors for over 200 years. Its current reincarnation, as a luxury hotel in a sophisticated market town, is a delight for foodies. The all-day restaurant is a buzzing place, full of ladies who lunch, deeply efficient staff and excellent food, from fine dining to a home-cooked pie and good local ale at the bar. There are plenty of places to unwind – lounges with comfy seating areas and blazing fires, a restaurant in the conservatory, a terrace with a fire pit, and two bars – one for champagne, the other cosy and overlooking the lovely St Mary’s church. Luxurious bedrooms and swanky bathrooms await upstairs.
Inspector David: A place that impresses with its sense of history, but doesn’t feel stuffy in the least. I’d be as happy popping in for a pie as I would for a champagne cocktail.
Sandpiper Inn
Leyburn is a fine old market town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, with this 17th-century stone inn sitting peacefully on its square. Food lovers are in for a treat. Jonathan, a Roux scholar, has cooked for presidents and prime ministers, and his menus are irresistible. Try salted squid or roasted chorizo, battered haddock or omelette Arnold Bennett at the bar. Get the full works in the attractive dining room, perhaps cheese soufflé, Swinton venison, dark chocolate marquise with white chocolate ice cream. Don’t miss the roast rib of beef for Sunday lunch or the market in the square on Fridays. Upstairs are two simple bedrooms with a country feel.
Inspector Julia: Hiking across the Dales and sitting down to food this good is a rare and brilliant combination.
The Durham Ox
This cosy pub, at the picturesque top of the Grand Old Duke of York’s hill, is the heart of the village. Sit outside in the beer garden, sample one of their locally brewed gins in the bar with a board game or book the private dining room with its own pre-dinner sitting area and log-burner. Food is excellent – great seafood, steaks, sandwiches and puddings with plenty for vegans too. On Fridays and Saturdays, retire to the outdoor covered Dog House with a newspaper and a gutsy red while you warm yourself by the wood-burning stoves contemplating your next move. Sleep in country-house-style rooms in the old farmworkers’ cottages, wake to a Bloody Mary and a delicious breakfast. Treat yourselves to a spell in the super new Pool Villa with your own outdoor space and a spa pool, or the Pool Cabin, glamping-style, with a mosaic-tiled hot spa pool. Both are extra spoiling with honesty fridges brimming with drinks and snacks.
Guest, Clare: We’ve visited The Durham Ox several times. What a treat! A gorgeous pub with excellent food, attentive staff, a well curated wine list and delicious cocktails.
