I’ve got to admit to being late to the party on this one as The Abbey Inn Byland has been open a while and I’ve heard a number of extremely favourable views that should have got me out there sooner. Better late than never though! The pub stands in the shadow of Byland Abbey which makes the tables outside the front one of the prettiest places in the region to enjoy a pint. Inside there’s a flagstone floor and a few different rooms to dine in, with some bar space too, though this looked a little limited, which is understandable in what’s likely a food destination for most customers. We were furnished with drinks and menus and seated in an open dining room along with a number of families who had dogs dining with them – a bonus as far as I’m concerned! It should go without saying that the emphasis here is on produce from the Banks Family farm with accents of seasonality and regionality. From the half dozen starters, we pounced upon beef tartare and smoked cods roe, with a fruity spritzer and a beer to accompany. Timothy Taylor’s Landlord might not be the world’s most exciting beer but it has proper Yorkshire credentials at least and was pleasant enough to sip on while we people-watched in anticipation of our food.

I’m an absolute sucker for a tartare and this was up with the best of them; uniformly diced beef with a deep, rich flavour further emboldened by smoked bone marrow and a hint of lovage and a couple of crisp crackers for texture and presentation. On the other side of the table, smoked cod roe was joined by a dill emulsion in being daubed around a trio of hash browns to make for a striking presentation with a topping of pickled cucumber accented by a frond of dill. All the punchy flavours you’d hope for were here with the gentle smoked roe brought to life by the pickled and herbal elements and the richly indulgent hash browns underpinning things nicely.

Mains were headlined by venison and pork, with the venison joined on the plate by a venison faggot and a spear of asparagus and new potatoes served on the side. Perfectly cooked and with the asparagus to keep things fresh, this was a well put together plate and the faggot really elevated things with boldly meaty notes and a hint of offal-metalicness. The pork came with pointed cabbage dressed generously with black garlic that did a great job of pairing with the meat. The meat needed the fat on it rendering a touch more, but was otherwise perfectly cooked.

By this point, we were too well fed to contemplate dessert so made tracks back to York feeling well-indulged and contemplating a repeat visit. This time we’d consciously gone for more restaurant style dishes but I’m very much looking forward to trying out the burger as well as sausage and mash to see what they can do with quality produce cooked well. The Abbey Inn Byland is an excellent addition to the Banks family empire which is complemented with values of sustainability, quality, attention to detail and a more relaxed vibe than its Michelin-starred siblings, which may be more appealing to some. If this is the template on which further pubs in the group will be based, then they are likely to find a bright future and willing audience.

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The Black Swan at Oldstead and its York sibling Roots need little introduction, being two of the region’s most garlanded places to eat which have bagged numerous regional, national and international awards while sharing their philosophy of local production, seasonality and preservation. The first few days of the lockdown saw Roots offer a Sunday lunch to enjoy at home, but that has evolved, as the practicalities of the the situation have emerged into a delivery service offering a set menu to enjoy in your home and reheated at your leisure.

Pricing for this came in at £35 per pair of 3 course meals (this may have changed subsequently) so we ordered enough for two matching pairs of meals to last a brace of evenings. Interestingly, the pair of meals delivered offered a variety of courses, giving a total of six different dishes to share. While this would chime nicely with our usual approach of sharing each dish, we were in the mood for indulgence and felt the need to stretch the occasion, so the scene was set for two nights of great food.

With a decent bottle of Champagne to accompany, we started our first evening by reheating potato and wild garlic soup with rapeseed and rosemary focaccia while popping a main course into the oven to be ready after a suitable interval. The strikingly green soup started things smartly enough, the focaccia bringing a few mouthfuls of greater substance to the dish before things really got going with braised lamb ragu lasagne that also featured wild garlic. There was no reinvention going on (or called for) here, just a perfectly executed dish that crammed in flavour and fresh ingredients while not demanding any more of me than being thrown into a hot oven. This first meal finished with a flourish of Jerusalem Artichoke and butterscotch sauce that was yet another intelligent use of produce from the Oldstead farm.

Day two started with a terrine of ham hock accented by Oldstead Marrow Relish, a condiment that I confirm goes with pretty much anything you can throw at it after I picked up a jar of it at last year’s York Food Festival. I felt like the terrine needed a bit of texture to draw it out so I knocked up a couple of crisped toasts to go with it, thankfully not drawing anything from the balance of the terrine that packed in herbs along with the meat. The main course was ox cheek and short rib cottage pie with smoked butter mash and bone marrow bread crumbs that mixed all those elements into a predictable depths of flavour and surprising subtlety, all the different flavours and elements present and correct without overwhelming one another. We ended on an elderflower and citrus drizzle cake with duck egg custard that was sweet without grabbing too hard at my teeth or overwhelming anything that had gone before, a happy few mouthfuls to finish the evening with fresh custard that’s all too rare in this house.

This time last month I would never have imagined eating comfort food like lasagne and cottage pie from restaurants such as Roots or The Black Swan but that’s where we are right now and I’m just grateful to find them still operating at all. I’d been confident that all the food would be delicious but it was a relief to find it all recognisably from the Banks family, with judicious but never gratuitous use of ingredients you may not typically expect. There’s no reason that what’s provided should be treated as the be all and end all of a meal too; there’re plenty of great producers around Yorkshire to deliver treats to tack on a great cheeseboard or perhaps some cured meats or fish to graze on first. This sort of experience will never let a great chef replicate their restaurant experience in the home. If we were up to that task then the restaurant industry would be in ever more dire straights than it is now, but it’s a happy compromise that gives individuals the platform to make an event of a meal. I’m looking forward to seeing how the concept can be developed as chefs get to grips with what they can provide us with at home to reflect restaurant experiences.

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The Countryfile Live outdoor stage area is always popular with crowds in the event’s Oxford edition, with thousands of people stopping by to watch chefs, food producers and food connoisseurs in action. 

Local restaurateurs are championed on the bill including Jonathan Harrison of the Sandpiper Inn in Leyburn, Matt Healey from The Foundry in Leeds, James MacKenzie, chef patron at The Pipe and Glass, South Dalton and Jon Appleby of The Blue Lion in East Witton. 

Social media stars and internet sensations will also be cooking up a storm with Flexitarian and baking recipe blogger Izy Hossack coming from London to York, as well as self-proclaimed ‘semi-fit Masterchef losers’ Billy and Jack, bringing inspiration from their exclusive monthly supper club in Covent Garden to the stage at Castle Howard. 

A taste of far flung lands will be showcased by British Iranian Sabrina Ghayour, whose Middle Eastern cookbooks and cookery classes bring the essence of Persian cooking to London and Yorkshire. 

Recognisable faces including Tony Singh, and of course Brian Turner himself will open the stage on Thursday 14th August at BBC Countryfile Live with four full days of demonstrations. The full demonstration schedule is available at https://www.countryfilelive.com/castle-howard/show-features/the-le-creuset-kitchen-theatre-at-countryfile-live

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Rumours of the location for The Black Swan’s sister restaurant circulated for some time and the location remained a closely guarded secret until a few people put two and two together to figure out that the recently closed Bay Horse on Marygate would eventually be the home of Roots. This is a building that has been under-utilised for too long so it’s a great pleasure to see it given the renovation it deserves. I was keen to get in and try the food as quickly as possible so more than happy to attend the Roots York launch and see what all the fuss was about.

It’s fair to say that in the early days after any restaurant opening, one always sees a few loose ends that the pressures of time have left hanging. There were a few minor details lacking on the night I attended, but nothing worth getting excited about. These guys know that the hard work involved in running a restaurant certainly doesn’t end with the doors opening so these will be taken care of by now. The upstairs of the building is a bar area now offering cocktails and drinks to enjoy before dinner which make use of herbs from the wonderfully well stocked garden in Oldstead. This is exactly what I did before heading downstairs to the dining room for the main event at the Roots York launch.

Tommy’s cookbook, Roots, redefines the seasons into three (The Hunger Gap, Time of Abundance and Preserving Season) and that approach will inform the menu at Roots throughout the year. The menu offers small plates which, while divisive amongst critics, still remain popular with the public. I can happily see my way through a small plate menu as much as a la carte but if you’d rather skip the decision making there’s also a “Roots Feast Menu” available for £55 a head which is intended to allow the whole table to get a curated cross section of the current season’s experience.

The food started, rather unsurprisingly, with bread and butter that came with seed crackers to give textural variety before the main event began. Regardless of the restaurant, I’m always wary of filling upon bread and butter while wanting to enjoy a multi-course meal so after double checking expectations were met, I throttled back and waited for the next course, which turned out to be kale in sheep’s yoghurt with pickled walnuts and cured egg yolk. It was a pleasure to start the small plates with such a light and refreshing few mouthfuls, the sharpness of the yoghurt never threatening the flavour of the leaves. Things got more substantial with the next course of fermented turnip bao buns with lamb. Delightfully soft bao buns wrapped themselves around finger sized morsels of lamb to give a well rounded few mouthfuls before the next dish arrived.

Garden pea falafels with carrots and pork fat were one of the stars of the evening. The shavings of melting pork fat struck upon a winning combination with the fresh carrots that also graced the plate. By this point, the table was well into the swing of things and ready for more so after a short pause we gratefully accepted cured trout with Oldstead piccalilli. The contrast between the fish and piccalilli, presented as a sauce underpinning the dish, worked beautifully and continued the accurate balancing act of flavours we’d enjoyed so far. Next to arrive was a headliner: craupaudine beetroot cooked in beef fat. This has become a signature at The Black Swan so it’s a real treat to find on the menu here. The beetroot spends upwards of five hours being slowly cooked in beef fat then is served with linseed crackers, smoked cod’s roe and beetroot discs. The texture and flavour that this cooking process imbues this variety of beetroot with is distinctive, rewarding and compelling, even more so with the cod’s roe. It’d be a brave move to ever strike this one from the menu.

With the “meatroot” done it was time for another famous dish, this time the Great British Menu winning “Turbot, Strawberries & Cream”. This is the second time I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy this dish and my happy memories were validated by the relaxed pleasure it gave to the group. By this point, we were drawing to the end of the savoury courses with only two to go. The penultimate was one that I’ve actually made a decent fist of myself with help from the Roots recipe book. That said, I think it’s reasonable to say the Roots team pulled it off better than I did! Ox cheek is always a delight when cooked correctly, as here, and it marries to cauliflower wonderfully well. Last up was a relatively conventional plate of skirt steak with what was described as “hash brown chips”. The char on the steak was satisfying and did the meat justice while the “chips” felt suitably indulgent.

Our two dessert courses were white chocolate, Douglas fir & lemon verbena and Mary Banks’ apple cake with creme fraiche and Oldstead honey. A few mouthfuls of these ended the feast entirely appropriately, feeling indulgent and well balanced. My preference was for the Douglas fir and lemon verbena thanks to the deft lightness of touch applied to it.

Roots has made a successful entrance to the York food scene judging by the amount of social media engagement I’ve seen and reports I’ve heard about the reservations already taken. There are a few risks associated with this venture: I worry that people will come expecting the full Black Swan experience and be disappointed. That’s not a criticism of the offering here, but there’s no denying that the Feast menu at Roots comes in around half the price of the Black Swan tasting menu. To be frank, both offer good value for the experience you get in but the guys perhaps run the risk of being a victim of their own success, having set the bar so, so high at Oldstead. Fifty odd pounds a head is very reasonable for a meal as enjoyable and broad as this and the emphasis on seasonality only offers more reasons to return. I’ve already booked my next visit and I’m confident it won’t be my last. It’s safe to say the Roots York launch was a success.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance. Opinions are impartial.​

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Demonstrations – There’s a great line up of chef demonstrators this year. I’ll be trying to fit in as many as I can, but with the number on offer I suspect some will slip through the net. Top names include Andrew Pern, Neil Bentinck, Adam Jackson, James MacKenzie, Sara Danesin Medio, Steph Moon, Josh Overington and Tommy Banks.

Food Events – With the festival expanding across large portions of the city this year, there’s a huge amount to get booked into. Here’s a selection to look at:

• Afternoon tea tour of York from Tours in a Dish
• Star Inn the City‘s pop up
• French cheese & wine with Love Cheese
• Community table at El Piano
• Txoko Basque tapas at Ambiente
• Medieval banquet at Barley Hall
• Melton’s fish & wine matching dinner

The Beer & Cider Festival -The festival, as always, warrants attention separate from that focussed on the centre of town. As in previous years, it’s taking place on the Knavesmire over four days (Wednesday 20th to Saturday 23rd Sept incl) and will offer the chance to try around 500 different beers. To help soak up all that beer, there’ll be nine food vendors on site too. Head on over to their website for all the details.

Discovery Tour and Taste Trail – The Taste Trail returns this year, offering the chance to take in York’s sights while stopping off at some of its finest food establishments for samples which are covered by the cost of your leaflet. A new concept to run along with the Taste Trail is the Discovery Tour Passport. This will allow visitors to really get hands on, enjoying activities such as pasta making, bread making and chocolate tasting.

This really is just a sample of what’s on offer. Pretty much every food business of note in York is involved, so if I’ve left out one of your favourites, don’t hesitate to shout me on social media and direct my ranging through the Festival. Have a fantastic time and happy eating everyone!

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That prediction was pleasingly accurate with Tommy tweeting a few days after the conclusion of the series that extra staff had been struggling to cope under the weight of incoming booking requests. There would be no repeat of the wait to get into the Man Behind the Curtain!

Tommy Banks, it seems, is a quite a chap. Remaining the youngest Michelin star holder for two years, holding four AA Rosettes at the age of 27, developing an impressive kitchen garden from which to supply his establishment and paying enough attention to detail to make sure each dish is perfectly paired to the crockery are just a few of the talents on show. It’d be frustrating if he didn’t come across as such a thoroughly nice chap too.

Oldstead is a picturesque hour or so drive from York that takes in lovely views of Byland Abbey on the way. The Black Swan at Oldstead itself is an attractive building that would perhaps benefit from a ‘open’ sign on the front door to make it a little more explicit where one should enter. Once inside, the bar is welcoming and warm with a decent selection of local drinks. One curious omission was the lack of any handpulled real ale, a bit unexpected in the wilds of Yorkshire!

While seated in the bar, we had a couple of small amuse-bouches to kick off: smoked eel Lincolnshire poacher and beef headlining the flavours while the foundation of a crisped potato skin gave early voice to the enthusiasm for using all elements of the produce without compromising on taste. I’ve, so far, singularly failed to replicate this at home. I remained blissfully unaware of my own culinary shortcomings as we ascended to the dining room ready to get stuck into the many remaining courses.

The dishes that followed absolutely justified Tommy’s reputation and skills in menu development. Partridge wrapped in a sprout leaf and confit chicken dumpling are potential paragraphs all of their own while raw Galloway Beef could easily have been seen as a headliner, though I’m a sucker for well-presented raw meat.

That kitchen garden ethos raised its head again with the beetroot dish that landed next. Crapaudine beetroot isn’t the prettiest vegetable in the land, but it’s a very old variety that gets treated with huge respect and served with fish roe after roasting in beef fat. Scallop nestling in a two tier presentation dish gave rise to giggling under our breaths as we realised how lovely the pairing of flavours was. The king scallop did its best to compare itself to golf ball without giving up on any texture or flavour.

Halibut and venison came and went in a fug of taste and enjoyment before we started on the sweet dishes, having decided our appetite didn’t warrant a fifteen pound a head cheese supplement, with an interstitial course of ‘Lollipops’. I particularly loved the chilled celery lollipop, giggling enough in the process to embarrass my 37 years before the last plate we had served in the dining room. Douglas fir and sheeps milk with lemon verbena dessert with a douglas fir sour cocktail? After playing the “well darling I’m a food reviewer” card and ordering the drinks pairing, I couldn’t refuse, despite my dislike of cocktails, so it was a pleasure to pretend I planned it all along and enjoyed the cocktail. After cocktail and dessert proved themselves wonderful, we retired to the bar again for our final course where we started counting mice…

Robert Thompson furniture is something my family has fixated on for some time (for the record I have a cheeseboard and a small coffee table) so spotting examples is something of a hobby. The examples in this bar are well worth seeking out. If anyone has taken score of relative mouse content between Tommy and Andrew Pern, then I’m listening.

Hoovering up a chestnut, chicory and lovage cake while back in the bar didn’t take long before we hit the road to enjoy the floodlit views of Byland. We had a fantastic evening and some truly exceptional food which kicked £250 out of the wallet for two people which included one drink pairing. If you’re after value comparisons then the Star at Harome is the obvious choice and there’s not a massive amount between them. It must be said that the impressive ability of the Star to function as a Michelin starred restaurant and somewhere you can stroll to for a pint without feeling odd is not something that is replicated at the Black Swan at Oldstead, but there’s no doubting the quality of the produce, chef’ing or service. It’s pretty obvious that the coming years will hold even greater things for Tommy.

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This year, chefs are competing to cook at a banquet held at The Palace of Westminster to honour Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II’s ‘Great Britons’, and with record breaking dishes and veteran
judges such as Michael O’Hare, Daniel Clifford, Simon Rogan and Phil Howard, it’s set to be an
impressive series.

The chefs are challenged to create dishes which could be a fitting legacy to our Modern
Elizabethan Age. In the year the country celebrated the Queen’s 90th birthday, the chefs have
been inspired by the transformation in British food throughout her historic reign, and by the achievements of Her Majesty’s Great Britons. These are ordinary, everyday people who have been
recognised on the Queen’s birthday and New Year’s Honours list over the years for their
extraordinary achievements in different walks of life.

About Tommy Banks

Tommy has a unique cooking style; cutting edge and modern yet influenced by tradition; ideal for
this year’s Great British Menu brief.

Tommy heads the kitchen at The Black Swan at Oldstead, which he and his family have owned
and run for the past 10 years. They have lived and farmed around Oldstead for many generations;
it’s very much their creation, and very much Tommy’s passion. With his farming background
naturally he wanted to grow his own produce in Oldstead so there is now a 2 acre kitchen garden
in the field next to the restaurant. Both kitchen and front of house are very closely involved in the
incredibly short journey from field to plate.

“A lot of chefs who start up have worked for all sorts of big names, and they have influences that
probably come from their training. Having not had that, I started looking at my background and
where I’m from. I’ve always lived here, and my background is in farming, so the two sort of go
together, and as we’re right in the middle of the countryside, we can give visitors a taste of the
area, and a taste of what’s around them.”
Tommy Banks

“We want our guests to feel part of it and experience it with us. It’s not just a job for us, it’s a
lifestyle
. We have recently simplified our style a bit and tried to let the ingredients express
themselves.”
Tommy Banks

Tommy has achieved great attention and national recognition. At the age of twenty-four, he
became the youngest Michelin-starred chef in Britain when The Black Swan retained its star in
September 2013. The Black Swan gained a 4th AA Rosette in January 2016, making it unique as
the only restaurant in Yorkshire and the North East to hold a Michelin Star and 4 AA Rosettes.

Tommy will be writing behind the scenes blog posts about each of his dishes and the stories
behind them on The Black Swan’s Blog-
Made In Oldstead

The North East heat will be transmitted from 10th – 14th October @7.30pm on BBC Two
www.blackswanoldstead.co.uk

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