Middlethorpe Hall is rich in history having been originally built in an attempt to establish a local businessman as a country gentleman. While I’m not sure how successful that attempt was, any failure couldn’t be blamed on the beautiful building which is set in 20 acres between York and Bishopthorpe Village. The red brick building certainly makes a statement as you approach its frontage from the car park with subtle lighting drawing you to the entrance. It looks every inch the archetypal country house hotel.

Any experience in a location like this is an opportunity to have a bit of an explore of the building so we started with drinks and canapés in a comfortable lounge while we took stock of the dishes that would confront us in the next room. The seven courses looked to be well judged and featured a selection of quality produce, as well it should at £75/head (the wine pairing is a very reasonable £35 on top).

The first couple of courses were white onion velouté which benefitted from savoury notes of coffee and parmesan before we were served a slice of rabbit and ham pressing with a black pudding bonbon and a good punch of mustard. This pair did a good job of comforting us into the heftier dishes and held up nicely against a Picpoul that was the first wine pairing. This was followed by a Sancerre to accompany a piece of salmon with spheres of cucumber for texture and freshness alongside notes of dill and horseradish.

Things got a little heavier with the next plate, featuring bold & meaty flavours from beef fillet, oxtail and truffle mac cheese. On drinks duty with this one was a Cabernet Sauvignon, fulfilling its role admirably alongside the strong flavours. There wasn’t huge subtlety or anything in the way of massive surprises on the plate but that’s not necessarily a prerequisite to enjoyment, of which we found plenty. It’s often the small details that make a dish memorable and here it was the crispy potato skins filled with a chive filling. I could have absent-mindedly picked at more of these for some hours.

The trio of sweet dishes that followed worked through a cucumber and elderflower sorbet, a “clementine” and a tiramisu. The sorbet did its job as you’d expect, punctuating savoury and sweet with a G&T granita assisting. Tiramisu finished the evening on an appropriately luxurious note along with a glass of sparkling Nyetimber, but the star of the section was the clementine paired with a Muscat of a similar shade. White chocolate and sorrel deposited sweetness and tang respectively to the deceptively light dish.

Middlethorpe Hall is a luxurious and memorable place for a dining experience which befits those elevated surroundings. Those surroundings also feature gardens and a spa, neither of which I timed my visit appropriately to sample but certainly offer the opportunity to extend a stay here to multiple days and indulgences. I’m very pleased to have ticked off a notable gap in my experience of fine dining in York with a delightful series of dishes.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this meal. Opinions are impartial.

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Howsham Hall is a Grade I listed building that is part of an estate formed of 11,000 acres which has, in its recent life, been treated to a sympathetic restoration. It was originally intended to make it an opulent private residence, but has since been co-opted to function as a noteworthy events venue. The private drive approaching the building offers a great chance to take in the scale of the building that sits dramatically on the horizon, growing to increasingly impressive proportions as you get closer until it fills your vision in spectacular fashion.

I was treated to a tour and found that as you make your way around the building, the scale remains hugely impressive. The space allocated to the bridal suite in particular is extremely striking. The rooms all take their names from local areas and are, without exception, beautifully appointed. Each one had an en-suite significantly larger than bedsits I’ve been “lucky” enough to live in before! As we made our way around the building, I increasingly lost my bearings thanks to the seemingly never ending array of rooms to take in. It was very quickly apparent that this would be a stunning venue for any wedding or corporate event, if probably a touch out of my personal budget. (Thank goodness I’m not intending any further weddings!)

We ended the tour with a beautifully presented afternoon tea that afforded more time to check out the primary event spaces in the Great Hall and Drawing Room. The savoury and sweet elements of the afternoon tea were well balanced and a neat demonstration of the standard of catering one would expect to match a venue so grand. It’s worth reiterating that this isn’t a restaurant with a menu that you can pitch up at to try your luck for a table. That being the case, the main thing to note about the food we were served is that it was indicative of a wider competence to fit such a grand environment.

It’s something of a shame that there’s not the opportunity for the general public to be able to visit on a more regular basis, but those lucky enough to be attending an event here will undoubtedly be blown away by the building and its refurbishment. Regardless of if I get the opportunity to return, it’s a privilege to have made this building’s acquaintance.

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When visiting Brideshead the drive from York takes you past some striking structures (I’ve come close to taking out tourists before, lured into the middle of blind bends for the best camera angles), the most rewarding views of the building come from approaching from the direction of Kirbymoorside. This lets you take in the frontage across the lake over which the building looks, which is visible from some distance in its asymmetric glory. When we arrived on this visit we didn’t linger on the garderns, rather making a beeline for the house to check out its Christmas finery, though both the gardens of the house and the Arboretum nearby merit their own inspection.

I’ll get to the afternoon tea that was the focus of our visit in due course, but the house itself entirely rewarded the years of build up that had accumulated thanks to my extended failure to visit. A normal, year-round visit would offer many sculptures and paintings in addition to the typically lavishly appointed stately home sights, but Christmas has seen them really get stuck into showing off so you can really enjoy visiting Brideshead. As we made our way round, we lost count of the number of Christmas trees that had made a friendly invasion, some constructed of artfully lit stacks of books, one comfortably topping 30 feet in height and another prompting confusion about how its stature had allowed access to the room, but all succeeding in complementing the space it inhabited. The circuit of the house gave a succession of delightful moments that served to provoke enthusiasm for dining amongst such well judged splendour.

With the house ticked off, we made our way to the Grecian Hall for afternoon tea. With a roaring fire keeping us company and all the tea we could reasonably drink on hand, this was a delightful environment in which to dine that reflected the wider grandeur without descending into cheap reminders that you were somewhere special. Staff were friendly and attentive without tipping into overbearing attention and the tiered cake stand with our food arrived in due course. We hadn’t taken up the offer of optional fizz, but £6.50 for a glass of Nyetimber sparkly is eminently reasonable.

I followed the menu through from the top, starting off with the “Castle Howard Christmas sausage roll” that offered a hint of liver in the meat and thankfully didn’t leave a hint of grease on the plate. The sandwiches were millimetrically uniform in size and gave up afternoon tea staples of salmon and cream cheese and egg mayonnaise along with Fountains Gold cheddar and caramelised onion chutney and a nod to seasonality with a turkey and cranberry sauce filling. While they were all well balanced I particularly enjoyed the free range turkey that was strongly flavoured and didn’t give into the stereotypes of bland, overcooked, once-a-year meat.

Scones were up next and benefited from hints of cranberry and orange to tease local clotted cream and strawberry jam. We weren’t willing to sacrifice our appetites to too many scones, so quickly moved onto sweet options. My overwhelming favourite was the eggnog filled almond choux bun, to such a degree as to deprive Mrs YoaF of the vast majority of her helping. Castle Howard apple mince pies were presented with delicacy to match the construction while chocolate and caramelised orange cake let neither flavour tip the balance too heavily and Christmas cake soaked in locally sourced sloe gin was as indulgent as it sounds. As one would hope of an afternoon tea, we were overfaced by a small but notable amount, so left with a few treats to remind us of the visit in the coming hours.

Reflecting upon it now, it’s rather ludicrous that I’ve never been inside Castle Howard before (Aloysius would be livid), so the afternoon spent taking in the building and food was a real treat. The afternoon tea will set you back £43.95 including access to the house and gardens (otherwise £18.95) and Christmas displays in the house. I’m already debating which relative I can use to justify repeat visiting Brideshead this year and cherishing the thought of bringing baby YoaF in years to come.

Disclaimer: I was invited to sample afternoon tea. Opinions remain as impartial as ever.

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After a busy few days we were feeling a little frayed and, truth be told, a little less keen than usual to leave the house. Thankfully Goldsborough Hall is a magnificent refuge and we were quickly possessed of a great deal more calm as we sat with a drink browsing the menu, alcohol free “G&T” being a nice touch for my wife as she’s expecting our baby. The lounge was just as delightful as on previous visits with the large open fire providing the perfect backdrop for some canapés, among which slices of pork terrine with tiny romanesco and sharp piccalilli really shone.

We made our choices from the well rounded menu and were escorted through to the dining room, which pulls off a neat trick by being ornate and grand without becoming overbearing. Among the selection of breads were slices of squid ink loaf that may have been a little adventurous (I’m not convinced fishy bread will catch on) but the more conventional options were lovely to nibble at while we enjoyed a pre-starter of a deeply flavoured wild mushroom risotto served in an eggshell.

For the sake of variety, I should try and look past beef tartare on occasion, not tonight though. This example used crisped slices of bread and pickles for breadth of flavour and texture with blobs of rosehip sharpening things up nicely. Rabbit tortellini was received with equal enthusiasm, the bowl being rounded out with haricot beans and pancetta with a rich sauce tying everything together neatly.

For mains, we’d settled on spiced monkfish and mallard, though we were amused by a brief feline cameo by this point as I spotted a server quickly passing the dining room door to remove the same errant cat that I’d mistakenly let in on a previous visit! I crossed my fingers that we’d get to say hello to the cheeky mog later when we left, while our mains arrived after a well judged interval.

The monkfish was subtly spiced, not distracting from the superb fish, and served with a delightful onion bhaji and a “Mussel Mulligatawny”. Every element of the dish was superb, the bhaji remaining light and mulligatawny keeping perfect balance with the tender flesh. While I enjoyed the course hugely, I felt like there could have been one more element to really elevate it. Given that I can’t quite put my finger on what that element should be, it’d be churlish to complain. The mallard arrived arrived with brassica and delightfully unctuous sauce to pour over. I don’t recall ever eating mallard before but I certainly hope to again. As I mentioned earlier, my pregnant wife is avoiding rare meat at the moment so it was, by my request, cooked a tad further than would have let it really shine. Regardless, these were two well judged and well executed plates that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Wanting to sample as much of the menu as possible, we then moved on to desserts, dutifully getting through matcha mousse with yuzu and mango, a layered chocolate and walnut trifle and burned cream with spiced plum and doughnuts. Each member of the trio fitted the brief perfectly, and I was particularly happy with the wonderfully rich layers of varying chocolate shades and the wonderful cylinder of burned cream that contrasted nicely with the light doughnuts.

Goldsborough Hall remains a stunning location and the food continues to live up to its elevated surroundings. The building is clearly in good hands with the Oglesbys and the kitchen helps them in doing justice to the history of this building. As we left, we bumped into our furry friend again who was showing admirable fortitude in trying to sneak in. It must be said, it’s hard to blame a cat for trying to get scraps from such well developed food.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this meal, opinions are as impartial as ever

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It goes without saying that Castle Howard is a stunning location for any event, with Brideshead dominating the view beyond the stalls on one side and rolling countryside in the other direction. Tickets to the event also included admission to the gardens and came in at the same price as a standard admission so there’s no arguing with the value.

We started the day with a stroll around the perimeter to get our bearings, checking out the food stalls and street food vendors we wanted to hit later on. The first food craving of the day was taken care of by currywurst (though I threw tradition to the wind and accepted a bun) before we hit upon a foraging walk for £3.50 each. The walk was led by Adele Nozedar whose immaculately researched books on the subject were realised into a fascinating 45 minutes that took in traditional medicines, alternative uses for weeds and all manner of greenery nibbling.

By this point I’d well and truly missed the cookie decorating competition that Tastecard had laid on (oops, sorry guys) but had time to catch Malton Cookery School‘s head tutor, Gilly Robinson, delivering a demo. Gilly had just completed an epic drive from The Spinnaker Tower where she’d been with Steph Moon to put on a Sky Dining event, but looked remarkably composed when she took the stage to knock up three delicious looking courses in 45 minutes.

By this time we were deserving of more sustenance before hitting the tents full of artisan producers. The Dilla Deli took care of that before we blew the budget on plenty of treats to bring home. There was plenty more going on through the day that we didn’t have time to catch including eating competitions, live music and more demos, not to mention the option to take in the glorious Castle Howard gardens. We had a lovely day and I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for another Great British Food Festival when next year’s festival season rolls around.

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