Fint is the new incarnation of Fettle which, prior to the rupture of 2020, was making its name as a relaxed venue to enjoy Scandi-influenced dishes and all set for a refresh to take it to the next level. Skipping forward over the aforementioned interruption to our lives and Fint is absolutely buzzing when I arrive around midday on a Sunday to get stuck into their brunch dishes. The small dining space is beautifully appointed with wood from a local craftsperson and squeezes in enough of a crowd for an atmosphere without getting greedy enough to impair your passage through it. The Fint Leeds brunch menu handles the transition between brunch and lunch neatly with a reasonably equitably division between more traditional brunch dishes and more typical lunch dishes.

One of the more intriguing dishes on the menu was a Lamb Crumpet Benedict that was never likely to escape my curiosity and the other side of the table went for the equally intriguing “Strangle the Priest Pasta” while a nice Albarino lubricated proceedings admirably. At the risk of common sense overtaking my appetite, I added a second crumpet and poached egg to the lamb dish that made it a formidable sight when it arrived, with lemon and dill Hollandaise crowning the braised lamb shank and poached eggs. I’d wondered if all this would result in an over-caloried start to the day that left one weighed down and lethargic but thankfully everything was neatly balanced with just the right sense of indulgence that didn’t tip into excess.

Strangle the Priest (Strozzapreti) pasta can trace its name back to various, presumably apocryphal to varying degrees, stories that all seem to have roots in the resentment of the clergy many years ago in various regions of Italy. Regardless of etymology though these are elongate, twisted ribbons of pasta that hold a sauce well and were a vivid shade of pink in that dish that served them with beetroot, watercress and coconut cream with options to augment including salmon, lamb or halloumi. I took up the latter option after asking my server which they would opt for and was more than happy with the resulting vibrant and satisfying dish including a generous amount of the headlining halloumi and beetroot.

In Swedish fint translates to “fine” which is rather understating what’s been achieved here. With a beautifully detailed and relaxing dining space in which to enjoy original dishes that justify their individuality fully, this is a delightful spot to dine in throughout the day. My only regret is the realisation that there’s an evening menu available now that will really let Fint stretch its legs and broaden its appeal even further. In some regions ‘fint’ can also mean “a find”; Fint is certainly that.

(Disclaimer – PR meal at no cost)

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Minskip Farm Shop has been working away for some time to forge a reputation for quality produce at its site that’s easily accessed from the A1. There’s been clear progress since our last visit with the new restaurant space well separated from the shopping activities and plenty of opportunity to meet a variety of animals. These additions seemed to have developed a nice buzz around the place with plenty of families taking the opportunity to become closely acquainted with some remarkably chilled out chickens. Thankfully we’d booked a table though, so there was no question of the enthusiastic throngs keeping us from that much anticipated brunch.

You’d expect a “Yolk Farm” to be home to a few chickens and there’s no shortage of them here. The sight of several thousand of the things meandering their way through a luxurious existence such as this is a comforting thing to have in the back of your mind while tucking into a menu that’s, predictably, egg focused.

Amongst the more usual choices on the menu we found our interest piqued by “Get Fresh” (sweetcorn fritters) and “Just Beet It” (beetroot several ways), two of the more unusual dishes that complemented the more usual poached egg & Hollandaise routine, that I don’t doubt were very well executed. I’ve had some sweetcorn fritters in my time that were miserable dry things, no such worries here though on this wonderfully fresh plate with plenty of lime and coriander in the mix. A bit of spice is always nice with brunch too courtesy of fresh chilli, salsa verde topping things off. Just Beet It was billed as a modern art masterpiece. Whether or not that’s hyperbolic is up to you but the taste certainly hit the spot and I enjoyed the presentation. Beetroot is a much under-utilised ingredient that this dish gave every opportunity to shine through its use of different techniques to vary flavour. Potato croquettes made sure there was enough on the plate to be a generous portion and goats cheese worked as well with beetroot as ever. It almost goes without saying that perfectly poached eggs featured with both these dishes, it would be rather odd not to given the theme of the place! As well as these we enjoyed picking through the remainder of a stack of pancakes that, while delicious, didn’t hold Baby Fork’s attention as long as we’d hoped.

Yolk Farm Minskip Farm Shop has been building a strong reputation as a brunch destination which is thoroughly deserved. The dining space isn’t over-embellished but fun details like swinging seats (thankfully tethered from underneath to prevent too much opportunity for carnage) ensure it’s certain to feature in many Instagram posts for some time. Social media friendly seats don’t count for much if you’ve nothing good to eat while enjoying them though and the food is more than a match. Yolk Farm and Minskip Farm shop are now well positioned to offer a good few hours entertainment, picking up produce for the following day before enjoying a meal and saying hello to a variety of animals. It’s been great to see them expanding their comfort zone into a truly broad, family friendly, high quality offering.

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Robinson’s has been building a reputation for itself over the last three years, offering well realised brunch and lunch dishes that show real refinement, consistency and balance. It might not have shown off the provenance of its chef or hit social media in the same way as a couple of its peers, but quality wins through and the demand its created has led to expansion.

The loss of a popular pizza delivery chain has created the opportunity for Robinson’s to spread its wings through a wall into a neighbouring premises, reducing our previous anxiety about squeezing in Baby Fork’s pram (pramxiety?) and presumably having the same effect on a number of other keen customers. The new space is comfortable and airy while allowing the business to fit in a good number of new tables and a kitchen that should allow the owners’ obvious talents to flourish. We popped along for brunch and found things functioning exactly as one would expect, delivering superb food to happy customers.

This new space offers the opportunity to further enhance the Robinson’s offering by stretching into the evenings, something that’ll hopefully start to happen on Fridays and Saturdays in the not too distant future. The plan is to offer a selection of sharing dishes and platters and expand the drinks offering to support it. There’s a beer tap featuring Camden Brewery on the way along with an offering from York Gin.

The patience the guys at Robinson’s have shown in matching their offering to their space is a pleasing bit of common sense in the restaurant world that’s so often so keen to get ahead of itself. That patience looks to be paying off now that they have the platform to really exploit their talent, the fruition of which I’m looking forward to watching.

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Assembly Underground opened in Leeds towards the end of 2018, offering a cool subterranean space crammed with food traders and an improbably broad selection of beers. Having set out its evening proposition, Assembly is now taking aim at brunch and is all set up for Sunday morning indulgence.

We headed across from York a few weeks ago when we were kindly invited to check it out and took an energetic baby along with out healthy appetites. Assembly is just a short walk from Leeds station which, taken briskly, can help work up an appetite.

All the traders in Assembly have clearly had a good chat to make sure that their respective brunch offerings work toward a cohesive offering. We kicked off with an example of the offering from Pizza Authority, who served up meatballs with focaccia to mop up the sauce along with samples of marinara pizza.

Jah Jyot were up next, fresh from their appearance on BBC’s Million Pound Menu and confidently showing off their brunch plate here. This featured chapati, spiced bacon, ‘Indian Hash Brown’ and a sweet tamarind sauce. This “Kathi roll” was reminiscent of the equally wonderful breakfast offerings from Dishoom and scores highly by virtue of also being available closer to York. Delicious.

By now the table was well into the swing of things and ready to receive The Falafel Guys who are offering sharing platters featuring falafel, halloumi fries, sweet potato chips, hummus, mixed pickles, bread & baklava. Falafel is so often a sphere of dry powdery disappointment but no such worries here and I can certainly get on board with the idea of sweet potato and halloumi fries for breakfast.

One of the headline acts at Assembly is undoubtedly Slap & Pickle, whose burgers and loaded fries have quickly become things of legend in Leeds. For the brunch offering here, they were serving up samples of their loaded tater tots and “Mick Muffins”. The tater tots were an obvious hit around the table with the generous topping of avocado, blue cheese mayo and bacon rain while the “Mick Muffins” were a much more wholesome version of a similar thing available from a well known fast food chain.

By this point, our appetites were flagging a touch, but we still were up to sampling chicken skewers from Bread & Butter Churrasco. These were pleasingly succulent and well cooked along with a fresh salad and a few other bits and pieces.

The drinks front certainly wasn’t neglected amongst all this with Vocation & Co supplying a range of breakfast cocktails featuring Breakfast Martini, Bloody Mary and Bellini of the week. Quality coffee was on offer from Stage Espresso & Brewbar.

The range and quality of this brunch offering is truly impressive and a great way to please a crowd of friends wanting to shake off the excesses of a Saturday night on the town. It’s a fun atmosphere too, though never becoming raucous enough to distract Baby Fork from the important business of lapping the floor. We’ll certainly be happy to pay another visit.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for attendance, opinions are impartial.

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Nemo
After our food tour, we made our way back past Centraal Station toward the Nemo Science Museum. This is set across several floors of a striking building that slants dramatically toward back toward the ground at just a gentle enough angle to allow for a fabulous roof terrace. That terrace offers a bunch of water features to play in along with food, coffee and cold beer. The day we attended was 34c, offering the perfect chance for a suncream swathed Baby Fork to run around while parents indulged in that cold beer. She may have been a little young to take in the physics of a keystone in a bridge, but she loved running across it.

A’dam
The A’dam Tower is situated across the water from Centraal Station, a brief and frequent ferry trip that doesn’t cost anything, dropping you right by its front door. The tower is topped by an observation deck rotated 45 degrees from the axis of the main building, all the better for situating Europe’s highest swing. Entrance to A’dam includes a green screen background against which to grab a couple of photos for later comedy value before a lift fires you to the observation deck through a barrage of lights and sound. The observation deck gives fantastic views of Amsterdam and also gives access to a restaurant and bar.

Foodhallen
Food halls have become somewhat ubiquitous in decent sized cities over the last few years and we’ve taken in a good few in on our travels. Foodhallen is based in a former tram shed that’s had some of the tram tracks left in place to reference its former use and features more food vendors than it’s possible to sample in one visit. We checked out Viet View for a delightful platter of Vietnamese food before being tempted by some elevated bitterballen from De Ballenbar. These deep fried balls of roux are up for grabs all over Amsterdam, but throwing more flavours into the mix, they became more than booze soaking treats. The Bouillabaise and white asparagus ones particularly hit the spot.

Little Collins
On our final morning, we had time to schedule a decent brunch so I followed up on a suggestion from a friend who’d visited relatively recently. Little Collins has two branches, with one being situated in the De Pijp convenient for our final appointment. The menu was uncommonly varied and adventurous for brunch, letting us settle on a kimchi toastie and Turkish eggs. Bonito flakes helped bring the best out of the toastie, while I could have done with a touch less Korean bbq sauce, and the Turkish eggs came with perfectly judged labne, flatbread and spiced sausages. If you’re visiting Amsterdam this place needs to be on your list.

Hanky Panky
In 1996, I picked up a book on tattooing that fascinated me. It was a collaborative enterprise with help from renowned tattooist Henk Schiffmacher, who at the time operated a tattoo museum in Amsterdam. By odd serendipity in 2016, when I added a fork to the few tattoos I got 20 years ago, it turned out that the tattooist I engaged on the spur of a moment at a tattoo expo was Henk’s daughter Morrison, herself a highly regarded tattooist. After getting that tattoo, I left with the offer of having it touched up for free should I find myself in Amsterdam. The offer stuck in my head and before leaving, I took the opportunity to get http://www.illustratedbyabi.co.uk to draw a knife to match the fork she designed all those years ago. Morrison was good enough to fit me in at the legendary Hanky Panky tattoo parlour on the Sunday morning to add the knife and touch up the fork. I’m overjoyed with the results but it must be said, flying with two freshly tattooed biceps and a baby to control was quite uncomfortable.

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January started with a trip to London where I took the opportunity to indulge in a Kejriwal from Dishoom, one of my favourite breakfast dishes. This month also saw The Ivy on St Helen’s Square open its doors and a fun day helping Brew York put together the newest variant of their Tonkoko Imperial Stout. Mrs Fork showed admirable fortitude for a visit to Whitby to enjoy a stay at The White Horse & Griffin despite her advanced state of pregnancy, even finding space to enjoy a meal at The Star Inn the Harbour. Finally, the Star Inn the City had the chance to show off to the great and good of the food world, hosting the Estrella Damm UK Gastropub Awards which was a very special day.

Dishoom Kejriwal

The Ivy

White Horse & Griffin

Bisque from The Star Inn the Harbour

February was something of a quiet month as we waited for Baby Fork to make her arrival. While her debut was of rather more personal import than that of Humpit Hummus, it was still a pleasure to sample their hummus and falafel. I also finally got the chance to try bread & butter pudding spring roll when Street Cleaver popped up at the Fossgate Social. Millers Fish and Chips in Haxby gave us strength in the days before birth, as did a fabulous Reuben sandwich from Shambles Kitchen.

Shambles Kitchen Reuben

Street Cleaver Bread & Butter pudding spring roll

Baby Fork

March was mainly marked by a lack of sleep, but I still found time to get out and about. Radix started its cutting edge regular tasting menu at 45 Vinyl Cafe. It was a pleasure to be involved with judging the Garbutt & Elliot Food Entrepreneurs Awards so it was particularly rewarding to see the winners crowned at the Hospitium. There’s not much that can prepare you for the first few weeks of parenthood so brunches became something of a refuge. We particularly enjoyed Trinacria (the sausages are superb) and the Brisket Benedict at Source, which was en even more welcome distraction after the loss of one of our beloved cats. The first meal we braved without Baby Fork was to sample the new menu at Goodramgate Ambiente, just as reliably tasty and great value as ever.

Garbutt & Elliot Food Entrepreneur award winners

Radix Hen of the woods, poacher & root vegetable tagliatelle

Source beef brisket benedict

In April Tommy Banks launched his first book, Roots, which later shared its name with his new restaurant in York. I had a stab at his ox cheek recipe and produced a dish that even Tommy complimented me on. A trip out of York to Gio’s Italian Diner uncovered a great value spot that delivered simple food, done well with great ingredients. Our wedding anniversary celebration was less ambitious than previous years but still took in a delicious rosti at Betty’s Northallerton and some beautifully honest pies at Lordstones Cafe. I also finally had the chance to get back to Melton’s for lunch, which was a great opportunity to remember the understated quality these guys bring to Bishy Rd.

Betty’s Rosti

Melton’s celery & gruyere ‘rarebit’

My attempt at Tommy Bank’s Ox cheek from Roots

May brought about the long awaited opening of container park Spark that brought together a well curated selection of the best of local streetfood. While there’s been some turnover amongst the traders involved since then, it remains a welcoming space. With a young baby, we were still struggling to get out for special meals so the chance to visit The Park from Adam Jackson remains a fond memory that Baby Fork was able to share with us. With summer starting, it was lovely to pay a visit to Raithwaite Spa and take the time to relax in the sun, not to mention grab some crab sandwiches from The Cod & Lobster en route. This busy month also saw the launch of Yorkshire Cheddar from Wensleydale Creamery with a menu from Yorkshire legend Steph Moon, a pasta class with the indomitable Sara Danesin, the launch of The Cat’s Pyjamas in York and Malton Food Festival.

Poussin, white onion, ham, hen of the woods from Adam Jackson at The Park

Raithwaite Spa

Spark

As we got to half way through the year, June took me out to the Herbs Unlimited open day and the openings of Shakespeare’s Globe, The Press Kitchen and L’Uva. I also took the chance to check out a fully vegan menu at The Whippet before we popped to Ludlow and enjoyed some small plates with great local produce at CSON’s by the river.

Family Fork at the L’Uva opening

Mussels in the sun at Shakespeare’s Globe

Vegan dishes at The Whippet

By July we were starting to find our feet with Baby Fork a little so managed a few more days out. The hot summer days were perfect for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Fountains Abbey. Fantastic meals came from Arras and The Star Inn the Harbour while I finally made it to Everyman Cinema for a Spielburger to celebrate my birthday after a film.

Salmon and Greek Salads at Arras

One of the Follys at Fountains Abbey

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Spielburger at Everyman

In August I travelled further afield to Leeds to enjoy the launch event for new Pudsey neighbourhood bistro Feed, featuring cheeseburger spring rolls and the “Hangover cone”. I also made it to Bradford to finally visit Prashad, which lived up to sky high expectations despite some enforced needlework, and Stamfords in Pocklington that represented great value. Cooking at home included sampling a recipe box from Riverford and it was a real pleasure to see Born to Lose open in Brew York from the guys behind Street Cleaver.

Whipped Goats Curd with Carrot at Stamfords

Hangover Cone from Feed

Kopra Pethi at Prashad

The big things in September were the York Food & Drink Festival, with whom I was very happy to work and curate the food and drinks trails, and the much anticipated launch of Tommy Banks’ new restaurant on Marygate, Roots. Sunday lunch came from the Principal and Born to Lose, whose Alternative Sunday Lunch was characteristically brilliant. I also made it to Skosh for the first time in too long and for a great value Bento lunch at Sushiwaka. A lowlight of the year came courtesy of a broken plate that necessitated a rather painful and invasive check for tendon damage in my hand and a number of stitches (NB: link to graphic pic), and I was even late for lunch! Thankfully my thumb remains fully functional, if still rather achey.

Born to Lose Alternative Sunday Lunch (2 hours after having my thumb stitched together!)

Lemon & Blueberry Cheesecake at The Principal

Garden pea falafel, pork fat and carrots at Roots launch event

Things quietened down in October a little; fine dining came from Hudson’s in The Grand and a more casual offering from Los Moros, whose opening and success was great to see. A set price lunch from The Rattle Owl was an accessible treat that makes for a great value midweek lunch.

Stone bass, langoustine and Fennel from the Hudsons Tasting Menu

Small plates for lunch at The Rattle Owl

Los Moros Tagine

November took us back to Roots for a final treat before Mrs Fork went back to work. I visited Leeds again to check out Dough, the new city centre offering from the guys behind Feed, and the Assembly Food Hall that packed a cracking burger from Slap & Pickle. The lunchtime pie menu from The Whippet hit the spot and I had great fun running a blogger event with the lovely Avocado Events and the Star Inn the City, to whom I wish a quick recovery to after their recent fire.

Slap & Pickle burger at Assembly Underground

Introducing the Children’s menu at the Star Inn the City

As we moved toward the end of the year, December took me to The Cutlery Works in Sheffield, a great addition to Kelham Island, which featured some great sashimi and poutine. The Christmas decorations at Castle Howard were good enough to encourage us to make it a habitual visit with Baby Fork in coming years and I finally got to see the stage show of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds that even exceeded my expectations.

Castle Howard

Martian fighting machine with War of the Worlds!

Sashimi and small plates at Cutlery Works

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The new Press Kitchen York restaurant is a large space, making use of both the previous cafe area and the attached bike shop, that sprawls into several cosy spaces from the central bar area. It’s boldly decorated and makes a feature of a vintage jukebox that benefits from a partnership with Earworm records for its content; a meal gets you a token to choose a song. Alongside the restaurant space there’s also a deli counter and the option to grab takeaway sandwiches. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked along to check the place out at an opening event and since then I’ve been back twice more; you can infer from that what good value it is for good food.

Our first visit was for dinner, to which Baby Fork was made very welcome while we enjoyed a cold beer in the hot weather. The evening menu is pleasingly brief, with seven mains and a selection of cheeses and nibbles to serve as starters. We went for a selection of three cheeses to occupy ourselves while waiting for our mains which were chosen from the specials also available. I was a little surprised at the number of specials on offer, contradicting the brevity of the main menu, making it an impressive feat for the server to remember them. Rather less impressive is my ability to retain this information. Perhaps it’d be more pragmatic to offer a printed list of the daily specials. Service was efficient rather than rushed and we were sat with our mains quickly enough. Yorkshire goat tagine was comforting and indulgent in equal measure, with plenty of fruit and zesty flavours to cut through the rich meat. Pheasant was another meat I was happy to see being used well, paired here with pearl barley and plenty of chive flowers. The pearl barley was a touch al dente but this is far preferable to it devolving into a indeterminate mush. For dessert we shared some ice creams and a pineapple pavlova that were a sweet and refreshing way to finish up before toddling off to tuck Baby Fork to bed.

Our next trip was for a casual lunch with a friend that didn’t need starters, desserts or undue fripperies to dilute the good company. The mains all around the ten pound price point seemed perfect and one of the party opted for a sandwich. The pork fillet with ham hock cassoulet was the star, pork fillet being something I see on menus far too infrequently. The pork fillet was cooked perfectly and cassoulet would have made a decent light lunch by itself with a few more bits of bread. Mushroom and artichoke suet pudding graced the other side of the table and was well received, the pea veloute with it initially looking a little too much like mushy peas but passing muster nicely when tasted. Earlier assumptions that dessert would be superfluous were proved totally wrong as my friends ordered a chocolate brownie that looked the part and elicited the right noises.

A big part of the Press Kitchen York offering is brunch so, of course, I popped back to try it. Smoked trout folded through scrambled egg on a chia seed bread made a satisfying start to a day and neat alternative to the ubiquitous smoked salmon and scrambled egg. The Huevos Rancheros I ordered was delightful with great depth of flavour from the black beans and well judged spicing through the salsa that paired up to separate tortilla base and fried egg topping.

Each visit to The Press Kitchen has impressed me so far with good service and great value and also interesting food. With the majority of main courses running to around ten pounds and sensibly priced drinks, this is clearly a winning combination. I’ve been three times in three weeks and, while that trend is necessarily likely to drop off, I see myself here on a regular basis in the future.

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The front tables in the Fossgate make a great place to people watch from, so we settled into one of the window tables to take a look at the Fossgate Social brunch menu. The main offering consists of open sourdoughs, pancakes and hot sandwiches while there are a range of specials to look at on a black board. We went for a selection, taking in avocado and crispy bacon, a halloumi burger and a black pudding stack. Plenty of good coffee was forthcoming while we waited for the food and chatted about what exciting developments might be in store for the Fossgate’s future.

Avocado may now be forever associated with millenials’ alleged profligacy, but that doesn’t make it any less tasty, especially when paired with bacon and poached egg. I might not be quite as fixated on avocado as much of my peer group but it’s hard to deny its appeal when layered and stacked amongst bacon, slices of home-made muffin and a poached egg. A stack of black pudding, muffin and poached egg with Hollandaise felt similarly indulgent, perhaps too much so as it would have benefited from a touch less of the black pudding. Matchsticks of apple completed the dish to add some sharpness. The last plate we tried was a “Social Halloumi Burger” which also featured roast tomato and peppers with spinach to temper the salty, toasted cheese; a relatively simple dish that did justice to good ingredients.

All the new brunch dishes I tried were excellent, though not a conspicuous bargain. I occasionally hear people comparing the drinks prices unfavourably here to more conventional pubs and the food pricing matches the ‘quality over quantity’ thinking, but the Fossgate Social remains a superb place from which to watch the world go by.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this meal, opinions remain impartial

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Once we navigated the couple of steps to the restaurant, we got ourselves settled into a pram friendly window table and took a look at the new brunch menu. Source brunch runs from 0930 to 1430 and gives a neat bridge between the breakfast and lunch menus, with some intriguing options including a beef brisket Benedict which the owner had pointed out to me. I was predictably unable to resist the brisket Benedict while the other dish chosen came from the standard breakfast menu: a sweet potato bubble and squeak with guacamole, chilli and poached egg.

Once we’d absorbed some caffeine over a chat with the owner, our food arrived ready to fortify us for the rest of the day. I’d had the bubble and squeak before so wasn’t in the least surprised at how good it was; a neat puck of sweet potato topped and tailed with spinach and guac’ under a poached egg topped with strands of delightfully sharp pickled chilli. The yolk descended over the rest of the pile pleasingly and the rest of the plate made up a cracking way to start a day for £8.

The brisket Benedict was certainly a heartier option, as you’d expect for £12. A base of sourdough soaked up plenty of Hollandaise and yolk from the perfectly poached eggs, with a generous layer of 72 hour beef brisket. With a couple of hash browns thrown in to further bulk things out, this was an indulgent way to start the day and one that would need to reward the calories with great flavour. I don’t understand why I hardly ever see beef and eggs on a breakfast menu so this dish seems to occupy a pretty unique spot in York, one that is suitable reward for a visit to Source. Everything in the skillet in which it was served was superb, including the rather surprising addition of barbecue sauce. I’d have been rather cautious if warned in advance of this, but the small amount of sauce between the sourdough and beef was more than a gimmick, bringing an unexpected but not overwhelming extra element. I’m less of a fan of serving in a skillet though. While it suited the dish visually, it obligated me to elevate elbows uncomfortably to reach the corners of the dish.

It’s likely you’ll see more from me about brunches out as we make some inevitable, baby-led, changes to our lifestyle and Source brunch is sure to be a venue for repeat visits. Let me know if you enjoy the brisket as much as I did, I’m eyeing up the breakfast nachos for next time!

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this meal, opinions remain impartial.

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House of Koko opened in Chapel Allerton in 2015, offering a great selection of loose leaf teas and Northstar coffee alongside good quality seasonal food. Along with Chris Hale, who made the quarter finals of Masterchef 2016, they’ve redesigned the dining space and menus to be more befitting of such a prestigious building.

The launch evening started with live music and canapés in one of the gallery spaces. I’ve got to hold my hand up to not having made it as far as the Hepworth Gallery before and was impressed with the open space. The canapés reflected what we’d see on the menu later on, featuring fig, avocado and corn fritters with chilli jam. We’d noted that there was a heavy vegetarian slant to the menu that was explained when Sophie and Chris Ball (of House of Koko) introduced themselves, with Sophie being vegetarian and the guys from ‘Koko vegan. It’s clear that there’s a great deal of passion behind this partnership and project. I was interested to hear more about the opportunity for private events at the gallery, in particular it being licensed as a wedding venue.

After talks, we moved downstairs to find Chris (Hale, not Ball. Do keep up!) demonstrating a wild mushroom ragu that he served on sourdough. Clearly it wasn’t practical to cook for a large group from a single portable hob, but Chris made the dish look fantastic with those limited resources before friendly servers arrived en masse to give the rest of us a plate each. This sort of dish is exactly the kind of thing, in my view, that you want from a day out. Good quality produce that was well prepared and didn’t demand a time commitment that would distract from your visit. The rest of The Hepworth Gallery Cafe menu caters well for vegans and vegetarians with gluten free options available too. I love the sound of their homemade baked beans on sourdough.

After eating, we had the opportunity to try a few desserts and some of the well reputed Northstar coffee. The espresso mousse I tried was absolutely fantastic, deliciously light and well balanced. We ended the evening admiring the beautiful plants from Fleurs before making the journey back to York. The evening had shown a really solid start for this new venture that I’m sure will continue to grow strongly. A return visit is definitely on the cards.

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