Food and Biscuits: Saturday - Elslack Grange and the Tempest Arms

Sunday, 8 April 2012

Saturday - Elslack Grange and the Tempest Arms

This weekend Joe and I treated ourselves to a little weekend away in the country, staying at the Elslack Grange B&B, near Skipton. Sally Thorpe welcomed us to a stunning house in the hamlet of Elslack, which has been in her family for generations and has just undergone a beautiful restoration. The room was top notch with an enormous bed, lovely fittings and a fab bathroom complete with jacuzzi bath - just what we needed to relax and unwind. She was a great host who, as well as making us a lovely breakfast before our departure, gave us lots of tips on where we could go for a walk in the area and made us feel thoroughly welcome and at home. We would definitely recommend this as a place to stay if you are looking for some peace and to get away from everything.

Even better is that just down the road (literally - a 5-10 minute walk) is the Tempest Arms, which we were told by many people is the best place to eat in the Skipton area. The Tempest Arms is a proper pub with comfy arm chairs, roaring fires and great, wholesome food served in huge portions.

Now, prepare to get the violins out here, but I've been a little ill over the last few days so probably wasn't the best company. Joe is a great fiance though and humoured me, even when I was getting particularly tired at about 8 o'clock. I am most definitely not rock and roll right now.

We went to the Tempest first for drinks and the papers (peppermint tea for me - see, seriously cool), which was fab. It was buzzy but relaxed and a great place to sit back and enjoy the scenery. We then returned later for dinner. Ill or not, I think this is the kind of place you need to go having not eaten all day - the food was lovely but enormous! For starters I had the rollmop herring and anchovy salad, which was a little nostalgic for me - my grandfather used to give my brother and I rollmop herrings and caviar when we were children - unusual tastes! Even more nostalgic, Joe had the black pudding and spam fritters with a fried egg, which were surprisingly good.

We probably should have stopped there, but we had ordered main courses of a fish pie for me and a seafood plank for Joe, which came with salmon, mackerel pate, cockles, crab, fried shrimps and a seafood salad. The fish pie was really tasty - rich and creamy with a crispy potato lid, but Joe was a little less certain about his seafood plank - it was a little ill-conceived - although the component parts were nice, they didn't come together as a main dish really. They did excellent chips though, and a wonderful sticky red cabbage side.

We will revisit both Elslack Grange and the Tempest Arms as I don't think I gave the latter a fair go - perhaps next time after a rather long stomp up a hill to whip up an appetite.