Pressed lamb
is a classic country pub in the diminutive but charming little market town of Leyburn. The dining room is very no-nonsense, just serried ranks of wooden tables at which two, four or six people sit quietly devouring dinner. Because the food is jolly good.
I picked the grilled goat cheese salad to start, and I must admit I thought I was just being good (eating out five nights in a row starting to get to me!) but it was actually rather splendid. A generous slice of really goaty cheese, properly grilled until the surface had a crisp brown crust, on a salad of beetroot, orange and bitter leaves that added all the right sweetness and tang to the cheese. Across the table the tempura cod cheeks were also good, in a properly delicate and airy tempura batter.
Goat cheese
For main I had a wonderfully cubist plate of pressed slow-cooked lamb with potato dauphinoise. The lamb was lush, completely falling apart with bags of flavour, and the same could be said of the dauphinoise. I did take exception to the veg, not because simple boiled veg isn’t just right sometimes with a rich meat-n-potatoes, but because they’d taken the trouble to include fennel and turnip and courgette – all of which have a wonderful flavour when treated right, but just taste of wet pulp once boiled. Maureen’s mushroom tart was buried under a mound of salad leaved, but it was worth excavating: nice nut-brown pastry filled with heaps of fungi, porcini and others, in a nicely fragrant garlic sauce.
You might pay around £35 each for two courses, and everything we had was excellent. Some of the meals on this trip have been even better, but I’d certainly recommend The Sandpiper as a good option if you’re staying in the area.
Tempura cod cheek
