Yorkshire Heart is easily found just off the A59 around 15 minutes from the centre of York, though if you’re attending one of the Yorkshire Heart Brewery Tour events make sure to keep an eye out for the sign specifically to that rather than confidently telling your driver it’s another couple of hundred yards (oops). Unsurprisingly the event starts in the brewery itself, so decent footwear is wise as is a jumper if it’s chilly. Tim from Yorkshire Heart welcomed us with the first of the evening’s samples, a refreshing pale ale, and started to tell us about the history of Yorkshire Heart, with plenty of info forthcoming about both the brewery and vineyard’s operation and history. We then ascended to the second level of the brewery to have a nosey through some hops and malt, going through the proportions one might use to brew different styles of beer… accompanied by a second sample of course!

By this point, it was getting a bit chilly so we retired to the cafe for more beer sampling and supper. At £20 a head including 6 halves of beer and dinner I wasn’t expecting a feast so the hearty platter that arrived was a nice surprise and perfect for soaking up the beer. I’d neglected to forewarn the team at Yorkshire Heart that my companion for the evening was gluten free which, while sub-optimal for her, gave me free choice of the snacks while the team sourced something more appropriate for her.

The Yorkshire Heart Brewery Tour is a great fun, informative evening which features a good selection of quality beers and a window into the operations of the brewery. It also introduced me to some interesting beers outside of their more conventional range such as their 7% “Brut IPA” which benefits from a secondary fermentation with sparkling wine yeast. I couldn’t resist taking home one of those to enjoy as well as a “Pinot Porter”, each a bargain at £5 for a 750ml bottle. Yorkshire Heart have shown themselves quite able to run a brewery knocking out cracking beers and with the Yorkshire Heart Brewery Tour equally adept at running a p*ss up in it.

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Kirkham Abbey is a peaceful spot not far from the A64 between York and Malton with impressive Abbey ruins overlooking a river, well worth a visit in its own right but the focus of this trip was another couple of hundred yards up the same road. The Stone Trough has been off my radar for a little while, in fact the last visit I made was to regain composure after attending an eating challenge not far away, and looked like a perfect fit for a leisurely lunch on a Friday.

The Stone Trough Kirkham Abbey lunch menu has a tempting range of sandwiches and lighter options, in particular a beef roll with its own dipping pot of gravy caught my eye, but I was more than happy to let the kitchen stretch its legs by ordering from the a la carte menu. The meal kicked off with scallops baked in their shell with cheese and chorizo and some cauliflower fritters served with pickled red onion and a blue cheese sauce. Both dishes were generously portioned and contained plentiful quantities of the headline ingredients, the punchy blue cheese dip and sharp pickled onion bringing the Buffalo cauliflower fritters to life with a real zing while the punch of chorizo gave life to the scallops without overwhelming things.

The selection of mains included plenty of crowd pleasing pub standards such as lamb shank, fish & chips and steak as well as a few more unusual dishes. First up for us was fish pie presented attractively with its mashed potato topping piped into an attractive topography which gained just the right amount of texture while resident in the oven. Fish pie cooked with too much austerity in mind can be a bit of a joyless experience but no such worries here with plenty of salmon, cod and prawn as well as the neat addition of grated hard boiled egg to liven up the well seasoned sauce. The other main to pique my interest was Oxtail, Beef Cheek Pearl Barley “Risotto” that promised cuts of meat suitable to turn the grain into something enjoyable, an all too rare occurrence in my experience. This turned out to be a really well balanced dish and by far the most I’ve ever enjoyed eating pearl barley, with the unctuous meat lubricating the grains in a very satisfying manner. Parmesan shavings and a perfectly poached egg detailed the dish nicely too making it indulgent and interesting without being different for the sake of it.

Sadly time pressures prevented a go at dessert as the child needed collecting, but that hearty quartet of dishes was more than enough to mark this out as a delightful country retreat worthy of repeat visits. The combination of good food, a decent pint, an open fire and beautiful scenery is enough to lull one into a marked sense of peace. I’m looking forward to having a go at the sandwich menu in front of the open fire imminently!

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3 Non Beards has been set up by friends Andy Aspin, Paul Marshall and Jason Simpson and will officially launch next week.  

The brewery is based in the basement of The Rook & Gaskill in Lawrence Street, making it the only brew pub in York and meaning customers can now enjoy beer produced right below their feet. 

Mr Marshall is also landlord of the pub, which will host the launch party next Wednesday evening. There will be four of the brewery’s first beers on the bar and competitions and giveaways. 

Mr Marshall and his wife Mandy have run the pub since 2013, and had The Waggon and Horses across the road for five years before that. They have won York Camra’s Pub Of The Year Award once at the Waggon and twice at The Rook and Gaskill, and Mr Marshall said he had long wanted to open a brewery as well. 

“Since we came here, I’ve known I wanted to do this as well,” he said. “I have spent days with some of the fantastic brewers who supply the pub and it became an ambition to be able to have beer on the bar that we had made ourselves right here.”

“Beer has advanced so much in the last ten years and people always want different things, and this will now be the only brew pub in York.”

The brewery will supply some beer festivals but the beers will not be available in other pubs in the city. 

Mr Simpson works for a software company that he had founded then sold, and Mr Aspin is a microbiologist at FERA at Sand Hutton. They began home-brewing together five years ago and wanted to progress, and said the opportunity to team up with Mr Marshall and go commercial was ideal.

“To be able to produce beer that we like and have it available in a pub that we like is fantastic,” said Mr Simpson. “When we put the first pilot beer on the bar and it flew out in three hours, it was a phenomenal feeling.”

Mr Aspin thanked companies that had helped them to establish, including local breweries Bad Seed, Brass Castle, Brew York and Turning Point, and ES Fabrications, who made the brewing equipment. 

The brewery launch event is in the pub from 7pm in December 18. The first beers include a pale ale called Misty Mountain Hop, a vanilla porter called Trade Winds, a cherry beer called Serendipity and a grapefruit IPA called Forbidden Fruit.

Mr Marshall said: “Come along for a unique evening, to try brand new beers from the smallest commercial brewery in York.”

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We fancied a few days away with Baby Fork for our wedding anniversary and wanted to check out somewhere new, so booked an AirBnB in Chester. Like York, this is a city with a walled centre, Roman heritage, a racecourse and a river. Similarity can help to highlight differences though, so I was very much looking forward to checking out a new city.

As with any city break, we started by getting our bearings after depositing our car at a handy multistory (Market Place car park was perfectly reasonable). One feature that my, meagre, research had failed to alert me to was The Chester Rows. These distinctive shopping streets maximise the return on their footprint by sinking a lower level by a few steps before topping that row of shops with a covered walkway and a second row. These are wonderfully attractive and add a unique character to the city but don’t lend themselves to accessibility. If you’re bringing a baby to visit Chester, make sure you pack a sling!

Dinner on our first night came from The Architect, in which we were lucky to get a table given its popularity. This is a beautifully situated pub with a fantastic beer garden overlooking Chester Racecourse. We’d been lucky with the weather, so after Baby Fork had her fill of fun exploring the garden, we took a seat for dinner. We weren’t in the market for a large meal so settled on main courses of steak & ale pudding and ox cheek rigatoni. These were decent pub dishes; the pudding made with proper suet and the ox cheek braised long enough to do the ingredient justice. The promised mustard mash accompaniment lacked any bite of mustard, but the root veg made up for it. We finished up with a shared sticky toffee pudding, Mrs Fork’s favoured dessert, which was as rich as it was satisfying. We loved the Architect and popped back a couple more times to enjoy the sun in that garden.

We started the following day at a conveniently nearby spot that came heavily recommended. Hanky Panky Pancakes offer sweet or savoury pancakes with a wide variety of toppings and a good deal of encouragement to get creative with how they’re deployed. Mrs Fork went for American style pancakes with bacon & maple syrup that were beautifully fluffy and put a much pricier example served to us in York recently to shame. My savoury pancake was folded around blue cheese and bacon to make a supremely satisfying start to the day. Baby Fork even had her own pancake that she attacked with gusto!

Suitably set up, we made tracks for Chester Zoo. Without having made any effort to look for cut price entry this was an expensive day out, the entry fee alone for two of us and a 14 month old topping fifty pounds, but the return was good. The site is enormous and features an astonishing array of creatures, most of whom Baby Fork reviewed from behind closed eyes as she snoozed around the place. With the hefty entry fee justified by the variety on offer, it still felt a little mean spirited to have to open my wallet again for the monorail, though the food offering was pleasantly fair priced and decent.

To recover from the day’s sightseeing we repaired to The Chester Tap when we had deposited the car to its resting place again. This is situated in Gamul House, parts of which date from the early 16th century, providing a suitable sense of occasion in which to enjoy a pint. We’d settled on here to eat, having added to our appetite carrying the pram up the inevitable steps and started with lobster bisque and crab rarebit on homemade crumpet, not standard beer hall dishes! The bisque was delicately balanced and pleasing and the crumpet really was superb, rich and satisfying with accents of tarragon but never losing sight of the crab meat. Mains were less successful, an overcooked pork chop losing its way against a background of roasted new potatoes and sauerkraut while confit lamb breast seemed to engender little of the advantage of that cooking technique, remaining dry and tough. I’d certainly come back for a decent pint and crumpet in this stunning building though.

The next day we decided to look around the walls and Roman remains, exploring individually in stages where necessary. We found the walls were more complete than York’s example, but more difficult to appreciate by virtue of being abutted more frequently by modern buildings. One complaint frequently heard in York is of a lack of parking, but I wonder how much less frequently you’d hear that after seeing an entrance to a multi storey car park attached to the city walls. Still, there are many striking and spectacular sights to justify the walk, which we completed before coming to the remains of the Roman Ampitheatre, a place of remarkable scale and the largest thus far to be found in Britain. Wouldn’t it be remarkable to unearth the equivalent in York!

Chester might not be brilliant for accessibility but it’s packed with character and places to visit. When I asked on social media for eating and drinking suggestions, I was inundated with more than enough to justify a repeat visit. I loved the Chester Rows and general feel of the place, and while similar to York, it’s certainly got its own character. It feels larger and more populous than York, but has kept the elements that make it unique woven into its current geography. Family Fork will be back to visit Chester again and explore further!

Oh, and if you’re concerned I visited Chester without visiting the renowned Sticky Walnut, fear not. It justifies its own post that’s coming soon!

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The newest big name on the food scene in Leeds is Assembly Underground Leeds, an appealingly subterranean food hall that features (predictably enough) great street food and a huge range of beers to choose from. The space that it inhabits, I’m reliably informed, used to house a nightclub and has been artfully distressed into a comfortable space that uses its corners to be deceptively spacious, fitting in a good number of food vendors.

On the drink front, the headline number is 50… there are 50 beer lines available to give a pretty startling choice of beers. It’s perhaps even a little overwhelming if you’re not committed to your beer knowledge; one assumes that the staff sampling sessions are suitably prolonged affairs.

On the food side, Bread & Butter serve up rotisserie style Brazlian “churrasqueira” and high quality meats cooked on skewers for super indulgent sandwiches. The Falafel Guys have earned themselves a great reputation over the last few years, serving up street food treats from their bright red van on Briggate, and now have a home more suited to the British weather thanks to Assembly Underground. On the preview evening I attended, there was sadly no pizza to be had from Pizza Authority but I was in the company of a very good pizza chef who assured me that the set up was up to the task of cranking out good pizza. Coffee duty is taken care of by Underground Coffee, but I was more interested in the colder drinks available so grabbed a cold beer before sampling some of the food.

I managed to hit Slap & Pickle and Jah Jyot for a couple of plates before my appetite gave out, first taking in a juicy, indulgent cheese and bacon burger. Slap & Pickle claim to serve the best burgers in Leeds. While that’s not the kind of absolute statement I’m given to making, I’m totally happy to say that this was a superb mess of enjoyment to work through. I can’t wait to check out their speciality loaded fries. The chicken Amritsar curry I had from Jah Jyot was a decent blend of spice and subtlety. In retrospect I wished I’d had enough space to fit in a masala dosa or one of the platters they were serving up but the chicken curry was perfectly enjoyable, though didn’t provoke the same praise from the group as the Slap & Pickle burger.

I’ll be back to Assembly Underground Leeds to check out the rest of the traders when I can but it’s safe to say that this is a great space with good food and drink options that’s bound to find its own niche in the Leeds food scene. I’ll look forward to a return visit.

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Two linked canvas tipis will form the bar, festooned with lighting and decked out with wooden tables and benches, cosy furs and an open fire pit, around which customers can soak up the Viking hygge.  The tipi has been given a makeover – bespoke timber walls adorned with Thor’s very own Viking shields bring an additional Norse touch as well as an increased capacity, allowing more people to enjoy a drink. 

A brand new drinks menu offers exciting new lagers, pale ales and Guinness whilst festive favourites such as mulled wine and hot cider will ensure there is something to warm everyone’s cockles. A new range of flavoured hot chocolates allows kids, big and small, to tailor-make their own drink, or adults to enjoy a sweet hit with a kick by adding a delicious shot such as Salted Karamel Vodka or Rhum Orange! Teas and coffees as well as soft drinks are also available to revive busy shoppers.

Shambles Kitchen will be returning with a new cabin accessible to customers already inside the tipi, allowing them to order easily from the exciting Christmas savoury menu, while a private outdoor heated terrace hidden round the back enables customers to soak up the festive atmosphere whilst watching the hustle and bustle in the Christmas market.

THOR’S tipi bar will be open from 10am to 11pm daily from 14 November 2018 through to 1^st January 2019 (closed Christmas Day). For details visit www.thorstipi.com or call 01653 610029.   

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The new beer hall hosting Born to Lose burgers is a natural expansion for Brew York which is housed in a former gym in the same complex as the original brewery and tap room. It’s a great addition to York and offers a lively space to meet up in which has got plenty of atmosphere, but isn’t distractingly raucous. The Born to Lose kitchen sits at right angles to the bar with menus suspended above letting you know what options you have to choose from. The core of the menu is burgers that feature house ground thin patties and all the refined trimmings you’d expect from the guys behind Street Cleaver. Along with burgers there’re a variety of small plates on offer and (when we went) the option to order a platter to suit a table of 3-4 people. Please bear in mind that the menu here is likely to be a moving target as the guys develop different dishes, so don’t be surprised if something specific mentioned here has been replaced.

Unsurprisingly, Born to Lose burgers are beautifully refined. I had wondered what twist would inform the burger recipes, but they’re actually quite conventional, not needing contrived embellishments, to hit the standards I expected here. The house burger is named in tribute to Anthony Bourdain, a gesture that would be inappropriate if the standard wasn’t right. The burger sauce, pickle, shredded leaf and cheese bring all the texture and indulgence you want from a burger, making this just the messy feast you’d hope. The Reuben adds salt beef to the brace of thin burger patties along with sauerkraut and different dressings, making it a very generous couple of handfuls that threatens to sate your appetite before you get to any of small plates.

To go with our burgers, we grabbed some kimchi mac cheese, padron peppers, Japanese chicken, salt beef and pigs head “Crubeen” donut. Along with salads and garnishes on the tray all this was presented on, everything was just as delicious as it was intriguing. Kimchi mac cheese is a Street Cleaver classic that remains difficult to get enough of and the tray of extras encouraged everyone around the table to get their hands covered in food, ensuring we ignored our phones and interacted with one another throughout our meal. Pigs head donuts had a real punch of flavour and the padron peppers were adept at cutting through the richer meat elements. It’s hard to pick highlights in a meal like this; Japanese chicken was equally fantastic and the salt beef demanded another trip to the bar for more beer.

I miss being able to grab a bowl of ramen at Spark, but this is a worthy alternative. I’m not sure I’ve ever been disappointed by Mark Hill’s food and Born to Lose certainly doesn’t break that trend. The breadth of the menu is surprising for what’s labelled a burger kitchen and everything on it was superb. If anything, there’s been a greater sense of refinement to the food on each subsequent visit. I can’t wait to see what else Born to Lose serve up. At the moment, I’m admiring the menu for “Alternative Sunday Lunch” which I’m about to book, featuring roast pork shoulder with black garlic, chilli beef brisket, miso cauliflower cheese and nam chim bone marrow amongst other things. These guys may be born to lose, but the rest of us seem to be winning as a result.

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The new upstairs beer hall will serve 40 beers at a time and will also include the new Born To Lose Burger Kitchen run by street-food chef Mark Hill, known in York for his Street Cleaver business.

The venue will open to the public on Friday 24th August, following a private event the night before for some of the 661 people who invested in the brewery’s crowdfunding drive, which helped make the expansion possible.

At the public launch, there will be 60 beers: 40 in the new hall and 20 in the original downstairs bar. Half will be from Brew York, with the rest carefully selected from other breweries. There will also be live music from the Disco Daze DJ collective, customers will be able to try the new ‘hoptails’ (beer cocktails), and visitors will get a sneak preview of the Brew York shop, which will open at the front of the building in a few weeks.

Mark’s opening menu will have three main burger options: The Bourdain, The Big Cheese and The Reuben, with vegetarian and vegan options also available. His eclectic range of small dishes will include kimchi mac cheese, pig’s head crubeen donut, chicken skin tostadas, and a sharing platter of Korean-inspired dishes.

Lee Grabham and Wayne Smith, co-founders of Brew York, are looking forward to welcoming existing and new customers.

Lee said: “We’ve had a fantastic first two years, and now we are building a venue that any city would be proud of. Places like Leeds and Manchester have some incredible venues, and this will be up there with those. To have been able to do this so soon, here in the city-centre, is a dream come true.”

Wayne said: “It’s going to be really different from anything else in York, and will be fantastic. Because we have direct relationships with lots of other breweries, we will be able to get hold of exclusive and very rare beers that people will really want to try.”

For the Friday and Saturday, admission is by ticket only, to manage capacity. Tickets are £5, which includes a glass and a £3 drink. To book, visit buytickets.at/brewyork

The beer hall will also be an evolving street art space, in collaboration with The Art of Protest gallery in Little Stonegate. Giant works will be painted on the hall walls, before eventually being painted over with new pieces.

Mark said: “This will be something completely fresh for York. I’ll be using local suppliers and ingredients and people will be able to see everything we’re doing. Venues like this are working all over the world but there hasn’t been one in York yet. But there should be no reason York should be any different to places from LA to Leeds, where you can get a great burger, amazing fresh food and a brilliant local beer. We will be working together and with other businesses to really get the best out of our industries and doing a lot of work to showcase the best beer and food pairings.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure this is the right thing for York as well as for us, and feel York really needs something like this. And we won’t be secretive about what we’re doing. If people want the recipes, they can have them.”

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Spark has been on the horizon for some time in the form of a proposal for a container park on the land created by clearing a derelict building on Piccadilly. That plan has now crystallised into reality and Piccadilly has become home to a complex of repurposed shipping containers that house a variety of businesses. There’s been plenty of debate, healthy and otherwise, on social media about the merits of the scheme as is bound to be the case with anything new and bold. This has in part been fuelled by some negativity associated with delays to the project opening. Now that it’s up and running, it’s time to let the project speak for itself though and see how the people of York react. It goes without saying that I’ve been exhaustively checking out the food options for you.

A great deal of the debate on Spark York suitability for the city has centred on its appearance and how well a complex of repurposed shipping containers would blend into York’s historic centre. This is likely to remain a divisive subject for the lifespan of the project, but in my view it’s all the better for its limited attempts to blend in. This was always going to be a distinctive development and I believe it has been improved by embracing its own character, embellished by striking murals and signage. Once you’ve made your way up the wooden entrance ramp to the surprisingly spacious interior that’s open to the air and grabbed a seat, it’s time to take stock of the food vendors.

The traders who’ve been chosen to take up residence in Spark York are a bunch who all bring, deservedly, strong reputations to the party. Fronting the complex, geographically, is Cwtch coffee who offer, unsurprisingly, superb coffee and a warm space to enjoy it should the weather outside not be playing ball. Keep an eye on the food offering here; while chatting to the owner, I get the impression that this is going to be a great place for breakfast… Moving further into the space, you next come across Munchies Cakeaway, who are ready and eager to provide you with sweet treats including waffles with a variety of toppings. These guys have been delivering delicious cake to the people of York for some time so are a great choice to dish out desserts and indulgences.

Another couple of steps gets you to the ordering hatch of Krep, who after making a name for themselves serving from their Citroen van have already established themselves as a firm favourite here. The mix of savoury gallettes and sweet crepes feature fillings that evidence great pride in the product.

Neighbouring Krep is what’s fast becoming a York legend. Street Cleaver has generated a dedicated following (among which I count myself) over the course of a series of pop ups and residencies. Headed by the impressively tattooed and bearded Mark Hill, Spark has given the opportunity to add a range of ramen dishes to the signature range of bao buns. Never one to bow to convention, Mark has branded his ramen “No rules” and is playing happily fast and loose, notably pairing chorizo and pork. This is serious food that doesn’t feature a single shortcut on the way to the recipient.

Continuing our tour of the on site food traders, Once Across the Garden do a brilliant job of broadening the offering by producing a fantastic range of vegan food. Previous dishes have included hot dogs, mac’ cheese and kebabs, so there’s no accusing these guys of retreating into vegan stereotypes.

Next up is Cluckin’ Oinks, who knock out the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten. I always feel compelled to qualify a recommendation to Cluckin’ on the basis that it’s hard to articulate how good fried chicken can be given the quality of what’s usually offered to the mass market. With home made sauces, fries and addictive fried macaroni cheese bites as well as the chicken, there’s plenty to come back for.

If you continue to circulate, you’ll come across Dough Eyed Pizza who have sadly had to temporarily close after a small fire on the opening weekend. I can’t wait to see these guys up and running again the slices of pizza on offer here easily rank amongst the best in York. Dough Eyed’s other neighbour is Sloppy’s Burgers, offering up suitably messy and indulgent burgers. Take a look at the scooter out front and make sure you get a pic on it!

If, after trying all that, you’ve still the stamina to check out more places to eat (for clarity, I didn’t eat at all these places in one day), then there are even more treats upstairs from Tikk’s Thai Kitchen, who won the northern heats of last year’s British Streetfood Awards. Every time I’ve sampled food from these guys, it’s been fabulous and the red curry I grabbed from them the other day was just as fantastic as the satay skewers I had the previous week.

Unique amongst the food offering is York Nurturing Community who operate ‘pay as you feel’ and ‘pay it forward’ models to make sure that anyone can afford a healthy meal with them. They also make use of intercepted surplus food that may otherwise go to waste. This is a wonderfully valuable project for York that’s landed in a great spot.

Obviously food this good needs something to wash it down, and Spark doesn’t fall short here either. There’s a range of beers from Pivovar at the main bar along with a micro brewery to offer more variety. Cocktails come from 4swings and are as inventive as their reputation suggests and if you’re after a glass of wine then BNHO have a great variety on tap. Of course it doesn’t end with food though. While that’s my focus here, there’re a bunch of good people doing their best to make Spark York feel more like a high street than a food court: vintage clothes, vinyl, interior furnishings, stationery and accessories all being available.

Spark York is a fantastic addition to York. It’s family friendly and has a range of great quality food and drink at sensible prices that make it a fantastic place to to meet the demands of most audiences. There’s a real sense of community amongst the traders that gives a real sense of cohesion and opportunity to grow the project. There’re a few improvements to be made, in particular more covered seating will add flexibility and a lift will improve accessibility, but the remainder of this project surely holds exciting things.

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