Review: The Beaumont, Hexham

The Beaumont

The Beaumont

Hexham is a very handsome little market town with a lot of history and a splendid old abbey as a centrepiece. Just a stone’s throw from the abbey is The Beaumont, the town’s grandest hotel (at least, as grand as a small market town could need). It’s an old Victorian building, very effectively modernised and a lovely stay. The staff couldn’t be more helpful, including at dinner. Hotel aside, The Beaumont also seems to be *the* place to eat in Hexham too and I’d be tempted to agree. Except, of course, that it’s the only place we ate in Hexham so I can’t fairly compare!

I started with a smoky beef tartare served with a vivid yellow egg yolk, charred fungi and crispy bits of… onion? Not sure. Nice crispy bits. More to the point, a generous portion of beautiful beef clearly very well prepared and given a spin with the smoky flavour. Maureen’s mussels were all plump specimens and served with a gently nduja-infused tomato sauce that worked extremely well with the shellfish.

Tartare

Tartare

For main I went with the wild mushroom risotto. This was a really good specimen, from the plump grains with just the right bite and the gentle flavour of truffle running right through, to the nicely char-grilled porcini added to the plate along with softly caramelised onions and a tangy cheese. Across the table was a superbly cooked pork chop. Having had a few over the years, I’d say that a pork chop is one of the hardest things to cook well, so I’m always pleased to find one with a good amount of crispy caramelisation on the surface, fat seared enough to be delicious and still a faint rosy pinkness in the juicy interior. Very full-flavoured too (I can speak with experience, as we ate here again the following night and I had the chop!).

No room for pudding on the first night, so next evening I forced myself to try their sticky toffee pudding. Excellent specimen, for the record. When I say that two courses might be £30 and three courses under £40, it’s clear that The Beaumont is also ridiculously good value. If I’m up in Hexham again I really ought to try a couple of other places… but it will be very hard not to just return to The Beaumont!

At the Beaumont

At the Beaumont

Review: The Blacksmith’s Arms, Lastingham

Lamb pie

Lamb pie

There’s a lovely walk you can do from Hutton-le-Hole via Spaunton to Lastingham and then back along the edge of the moor, it’s only four miles or a couple of hours and all three villages are lovely. We came back to Lastingham in the evening for dinner at The Blacksmith’s Arms, an atmospheric little inn tucked in a fold of the landscape with the village church and a scatter of grey stone cottages.

The menu is a lovely looking no-frills mixture of pub classics and more modern twists, and the prices good value. My starter was goat cheese and beetroot arancini. In hindsight I’m not sure why I picked it, as although I like goat cheese and beetroot they seem an odd filling for an arancini. Sure enough, they just sat there as unexpected flavour nuggets in an otherwise pretty dry rice ball fried in a very hefty breadcrumb coating. One large arancini would definitely have been better than the three small ones.

Stroganoff

Stroganoff

My main was a piece of minted lamb pie. It was fine. I’ve had much more full-flavoured, melting and lush lamb in other pies, much more zip of mint in the gravy and much more crisp and nutty pastry. So this was just okay. Maureen’s beef stroganoff was also just kinda okay. It was the beef stroganoff of a modest home cook; the beef neither full-flavoured in itself nor seared, just cooked right through and sturdy in the creamy sauce and looking very grey on a bed of rice. Across the table mum had sea bass with a wild garlic risotto… but such a miniscule (if any?) amount of wild garlic in there it was undetectable. Decent chunk of fish though.

So although priced fairly, around £30 for two courses, I can’t honestly say that I’d seek out the Blacksmith’s Arms in Lastingham. But if you happen to want a lunch stop on a nice walk, or you’re staying in the area, it’s not going to do you any harm either.

Country stroll

Country stroll

Review: Fox & Hounds, Sinnington

Fox & Hounds

Got a few reviews in a bunch, from a week touring parts of the north of England. As usual we found a whole lot of warm, hospitable and brilliant places to stay and eat and explore. The Fox & Hounds in Sinnington was our first stop. The village is tiny, tucked up at the foot of the North York Moors in a little valley and utterly forgotten by the world – a long way from tearoom-and-tourist packed Helmsley ten minutes down the road. The inn was a great place to stay, dressed up in the kind of country chic you’d expect from the Cotswolds but very down to earth in hospitality and friendliness.

Their food is a good step above pub classics. I started with some beautiful chicken livers on toast, glistening in a lush wine sauce with grapes and crisp onions. The squire would certainly have this for supper of a chilly spring evening! Across the table, little Yorkshire blue cheese croquettes dressed with apple and hazelnuts were even better.

Chicken livers

Chicken livers

My main was rolled pork belly, slow cooked and then finished with a beautiful crispy surface in the pan. It sat on top of one of the best potato rostis I’ve had: totally fulfilling the rosti promise of crispy, scrunchy outside bits and silky, still firm, insides. I’m not sure what’s involved in “pot roast” carrot but it was a handsome beast with bags of flavour. Good celeriac puree. Very good cider gravy. Basically an immensely satisfying plate of food. The confit duck leg atop a bed of asparagus and fennel salad was also excellent.

Scarcely any room for pudding, so I had an affogato made spiffy by the choice of rum-and-raisin ice cream and honeycomb crumbled on top. Across the table a raspberry souffle came out perfectly. All in all a lovely meal, and it worked out around £40 each for two courses or £50 for three. I think that fairly matches the quality, towards the top end of pub dining.

Pork belly

Pork belly

Review: Embers, Brighton

Cocktails by the fire

Embers is a cooked-on-wood restaurant in the Brighton Lanes. Most fun is sitting up at the counter, so you can watch the chefs do their thing with the flickering orange flames, the coals and ashes. Sizzling fat etc. The menu is small plate style and they’re really doing their utmost to bring you maximum char and full-on flavour with every dish. Boom. Although it’s interesting how often the gas-fired blowtorch comes out to finish off the effect!

Aubergine from the embers first, cooked like a nasu dengaku but without the sticky glaze. Nice charring, squidgy aubergine, and a big whack of powerfully good carrot kimchi on top. This was followed by a nicely pink lamb leg chop, topped with a wild garlic salsa verde and slippery bits of slow roast red pepper. Nice glossy gravy, although it felt a tad out of place on the smoky char-grilled meat. Next up, grilled calves liver, cooked to perfection, with a peppy chimichurri and a powerfully umami-salty crumb all over. Vroom. The grilled skate wing was a bit on the small side; a couple of forkfuls each once the meat was scraped off the bone. Big on flavour though, with a heavy char, and a peppercorn sauce that tasted way deeper and funkier than expected. Hits of caper too.

Ember aubergine

Ember aubergine

Final dish was “bonfire potatoes”, and maybe it’s a bit of a signature cos it was certainly dish of the day. Crispy, crunchy, flavour-packed jacket potato skins with a lush mashed potato loaded back into them, on top of burnt brisket ends muddled up with a sticky-sweet-hot sauce. Some crispy scraps on top for added crunch. Mmmm.

They suggested four dishes each, which is barking mad as we were comfortably full after five-between-two (then again, the size varies quite a bit). We had rock-solid cocktails and a decent glass of wine. But I will say that by the end of five dishes we were flavour overloaded and in need of a rest! It’s quite full on, and that’s from a couple who love big flavours. You’d spend maybe £40 each on food, and that’s probably spot on. I think I could be lured back, maybe…?

Bonfire potatoes

Bonfire potatoes

Review: Furna, Brighton

Furna

Furna

I wonder to what degree my enthusiasm for a menu is guided by the whole experience? There’s absolutely no doubt it has an effect: I don’t have professional tastebuds nor zen-like detachment, so how much I enjoyed the fish dish will be influenced by how much I’m enjoying the whole dining experience. But is the effect extreme enough to disqualify the entire review? If I rave about menu A but I’m decidedly “meh” about menu B, would you really be well advised to pick restaurant A over restaurant B? I hope so. Because after all, we’re all hoping for a good experience and although some luck comes into it, generally the best service and ambiance are as consistent as the best cooking.

Anyway, we had a great meal at the chef’s counter at Furna, and I’d recommend booking those seats if you can. Admittedly it was a quiet lunchtime, so we got to monopolise chef and the team with all our questions about the food and the wine and pretty much anything else. The rest of the dining room is dark tones, stylish and inviting. Short but solid wine list and some great cocktails to start.

Trout

Trout

First up were some jolly splendid snacks, including a scrumptious hash brown fried in pork fat with a curl of smoky coppa on top, and a chunk of braised octopus with the most perfect texture and a punchy, sticky XO glaze with a yeasty foamy hollandaise. Both of these were among those happy “line up a dozen of these, I’ll be in heaven” snacks. The little tearable brioche/milkbread loaf glazed in garlicky butter just got demolished by us, served with creamy cod roe as well as butter.

First starter was a single Jersey royal, skin blackened, on top of a cream sauce spiked with smoked eel and apple. The potato was topped with a generous dollop of pike roe, a beautiful golden roe with a slightly more delicate flavour than caviar and a more sturdy bite. Loved it. Fish was chalk stream trout, a rather salty piece of fish but with a real depth of flavour from the curing. The star of the dish was a beautiful sea buckthorn and habanero sauce, a new combo to me but the fragrant citrus and the fruity heat paired very well. The sauce and the crunchy tempura courgette flower on top went a good way to balancing the salty fish.

Lush lamb

Lush lamb

Main course was my favourite lamb dish from the last few we’ve had (dine out on tasting menus in spring and you basically get to find out how many ways there are of doing lamb!). The lamb was beautifully full-flavoured with extra oomph from its finish under flames, but the extras really made it: a cloudy dollop of whipped curds, a courgette-and-basil puree that absolutely hummed with basic fragrance, some tiny bone marrow cubes and well-charred asparagus and other greens. Oh, and a lollipop of crispy fried lamb sweetbread on the side, dipped in a lush cumin-y sauce. Yum.

We finished with a nice slice of lemon tart on a buckwheat pastry, given zest and pop by charred pieces of various citrus fruits (we even nibbled on Buddha’s finger!). Good petit fours too; I’ll take an Aperol spritz jelly over any number of fruit jellies in future, thank you!

We paid £85 for the menu and £55 for an enjoyable wine pairing, although this was lunch time and I think there’s an extra tenner to pay in the evenings. I thought this was great value for the quality of the menu and the overall experience. I’ll definitely suggest Furna if anyone asks for a good fine dining option in the middle of Brighton!

Great snacks

Great snacks