Culinary royalty

From its 1920s AA yellow-and-black roadsign on the frontage, to the eclectic collection of pictures and mirrors on the walls inside, the pub-restaurant has a retro feel to it. There were real sweet peas on the table and cotton-pickin’ music on the stereo.

On the menu, starters ranged from the conservative prawn cocktail to the more adventurous twice-baked cheese souffle with walnut and beetroot salad, which my wife, Petra, chose. The souffle was light, its richness offset by the sweetness of the beetroot, and it was accompanied by a goodsized bowl of greenery.

My French black pudding Scotch egg with capers and mustard mayonnaise was a wonderful amalgam of tastes and textures.

The outside of the egg was crunchy, the black pudding was fruity, the egg was soft and slightly runny, and the pickled caper was sharp. Then I added in the homemade mustard mayonnaise which was creamily hot to top it all off.

My enthusiasm remained undimmed throughout my main course. I am a confirmed meat-eater, and there was plenty to choose from – pork belly, venison wellington, local rabbit – but, despite a few misgivings about the frankness of the description, I chose 12-hour braised beef cheeks and fillet, ginger carrots, smoked mash and bone marrow crumb.

To be honest, I didn’t really understand the ginger carrots, and there wasn’t enough of the crumb to add much of a crunch, but the two cheeks were absolutely superb, unlike any beef I’ve ever tasted.

Beautifully braised in an excellent gravy, they melted in the mouth, rich and yet somehow sweet. They quite overshadowed the small piece of fillet beneath them – it tasted almost drab by comparison.

On the other side of the table, Petra was nearly as enthusiastic about her sea bream, served with samphire and purslane, two sea green vegetables, and broad beans in a nori – peanut – sauce.

Well, as I recall she was enthusiastic, but I forgot to take my customary notes because I was revelling in my beef cheeks so much, and wondering how you could give mashed potato such a delicate smoking without it overpowering everything else. The dessert menu was distinctly fruity, and I half-raised an eyebrow of concern at there not being even a whiff of anything chocolatey to tempt me.

For a moment, to be daring, I wavered over the roasted peach with thyme ice cream because it sounded so unlikely, but instead I chose the very conservative sticky toffee pudding and ice cream.

It was a mistake. Not that it was bad, but it was just an ordinarily pleasant sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. After the brilliance that had gone before, I was disappointed, and compared to the brilliance on the other side of the table, I felt let down.

Petra had ordered the pistachio cake with fig puree. She adores both pistachio and fig, and the mix of the rich puree and the nuttiness of the cake was quite heavenly.

There was also half a fig for her to dig into, plus a scoop of vanilla ice cream sprinkled with zingy lemon balm.

But best of all, standing on its end, was a fig and pistachio macaroon. Petra loves macaroons with their chewy centres and here was one deliciously homemade in two of her favourite flavours.

She saved it to last, the climax of her meal, while I a little despondently finished off the last of my far-too-safe sticky toffee pudding.

The service was very good as there were plenty of attentive young staff who were able to dash off and find the answers to our questions about lemon balm and samphire.

With a couple of drinks, the meal for two came to £72 – I feared it would be more as, at £19.95, the beef cheeks were an extravagance.

But they were worth every penny. It was a truly memorable meal. We had been treated regally by culinary royalty.

Food facts

Crathorne Arms,
Crathorne, near Yarm, North Yorkshire,
TS15 0BA
Tel: 01642-961402
Website: thecrathornearms.co.uk

Food: 4/5 stars 
Ambience: 4/5 stars
Service: 4/5 stars
Value for money: 4/5 stars