To Dine For... Great places to eat

You can find Vennell’s just off Masham’s spacious Market Place, behind a smart, maroon-painted frontage whose large display window suggests that a century ago it was a shop. So far, so chic.

Inside, though, the decor is surprisingly muted, with walls and carpets in sullen hues of beige, and a central light fitting that would be more at home in a 1970s tearoom than a 21st-century fine-dining establishment. The walls are currently hung with landscape paintings, presumably by some local artist, which to my eye appear to be executed with little enthusiasm and less talent. » read the full review

From the outside, The Raby Hunt looks every inch the country hostelry that it evidently once was. Step through the door, though, and you’ll find a stylish restaurant with an urban atmosphere that’s all the more surprising given its location – the modest little village of Summerhouse on the winding back road between Darlington and Staindrop.

There’s a pocket-size bar, done out in red and black, and a smart dining room dominated by understated purples and warm, woody tones. » read the full review

Catering is an especially volatile business,  and over the ten years that I have been reviewing restaurants in and around the Dales there have been countless openings-up, closings-down and changes of ownership.

Even where an establishment has remained in the same hands, things can change.  Problems can be righted, and standards can soar.  Or, more often — as has happened with several places I could mention — complacency can set in, and standards can plummet. » read the full review

If you were entertaining  foreign guests  with romantic notions about England and Englishness, then Swinton Park would be just the right kind of place to take them.  With its rolling parkland, placid lakes, walled garden and ivy-clad turret it is the very epitome of a grand country house.

Nowadays Swinton is a luxury hotel, with a cookery school and spa to boot. » read the full review

Hutton Magna is a modest little village just north of the A66, a mile or two short of Barnard Castle.  In line with the small scale of its surroundings, The Oak Tree Inn is a pocket-sized hostelry, a single-storey stone building — scarcely more than a cottage — with a neat whitewashed frontage.

The bar-cum-dining space is long and narrow, not spacious but undeniably charming.  There’s plenty of wood panelling, including a panelled ceiling, and some quirky wooden settles. » read the full review

The George at Wath, just north of Ripon,  reopened under new management earlier this year.  And even before we stepped through the door, we could see that the new owners have put a good deal of thought and effort into refurbishing it.

In fact, the elegant simplicity of the brand new sign on The George’s frontage tells you just what to expect from the interior: something stylish, bright and modern, but with a nod to the past. » read the full review

Hurworth is a handsome village on the banks of the Tees a mile or two south of Darlington, and The Bay Horse stands on the north side of its spacious green-cum-main street.

Behind the whitewashed frontage you’ll find a subtle, contemporary take on the time-honoured English country pub.  With its open fireplace, window seats, solid old furniture and wood-floored dining room, The Bay Horse has a cosy, mellow ambience that conjures up the hostelries of yesteryear. » read the full review