Well, by ’eck. Things have been happening to East Yorkshire in the decades since I hightailed it out of there at 18 in search of bright lights. First there was David Hockney swapping glam west coast US for east coast UK, and his acclaimed paintings of what I’d thought of as an unremarkable landscape being shown at the Royal Academy. Now the county is having a bit of a foodie moment, as people wake up to the coast’s fantastic fish and seafood – plus meat, cheese, beer and extra-virgin rapeseed oil from countryside that, if not always rolling, ripples prettily in places.
A pub I remember from long-ago family lunches, the Pipe and Glass in South Dalton, has only gone and got itself a Michelin star. The New Inn in Tickton, three miles from historic Beverley, is as down-to-earth a boozer as you could find – Formica tables, good beer, carrot-growing competition – but its blackboard lists hyper-local suppliers of beef, duck, herbs, award-winning cheese and smoked fish. Wot, no scampi?
On the edge of the village, the family-run Tickton Grange hotel is also seizing that moment, with a relaunched, rechristened restaurant, Hide, and four new sleek, contemporary bedrooms in the Georgian house’s former granary.
Our room, however, in the main coffee and cream-coloured house, whisks us back 200 years, in a good way. Sitting on a cute armchair by the Regency fireplace, surveying spreading cherry and chestnut trees through a long window, I feel like one of the Bennet sisters. “But she wouldn’t have had a Nespresso machine to play with,” says my husband, bringing me an ace coffee as we eat flapjacks made with honey from Tickton Grange’s own hives.
Fortified, we point the car coastwards, and, first of all, take in Bridlington, with its two wide beaches, and piled lobster pots testifying to its standing as Britain’s biggest shellfishing port. Then it’s on to Bempton Cliffs, home to East Yorkshire’s real fishing experts, 200,000 nesting seabirds, from massive gannets to brave little puffins, and guillemots, which lay pointy eggs, so they don’t roll off the cliff.
We make a point of checking out the fish at dinner back at the Hide restaurant. This is fine dining, but service is discreet and friendly. We’re left in peace to peruse menus in the library bar over refreshing Humber Light beers from Wold Top brewery before the obligatory amuse-bouche – a thimble of red pepper gazpacho.
A cold starter jokily pairing crab apples with real Bridlington crab is a slight disappointment, the flesh tasting of North Sea, but all the crustacean texture pounded and pureed away. But beach-caught sea bass from the unassuming village of Skipsea is glorious and goes well with chorizo-like air-dried sausage from the Three Little Pigs company on the other side of Beverley. On the meaty side, melting duck in seed mustard jus comes with fresh peas so delicious that frozen ones will never do it for me again.
We stay fishy next morning, with smoked haddock for him, and a generous pile of creamy scrambled egg with smoked salmon for me. Breakfast finishes at a very Yorkshire 9am, though, which makes me smile. The food here is champion, but southern wusses who want their slugabed ways pandering to can stick to Surrey.
• Accommodation was provided by Tickton Grange, Tickton, Beverley, East Yorkshire, 01964 543666, ticktongrange.co.uk. Doubles from £115 B&B
