It’s a fine autumn day, warm and soft, just the right weather for a jaunt to the north Yorkshire coast. And the perfect excuse to sit on the pretty stone flagged patio outside the rather glamorous glass and blonde wood edifice that is the restaurant at the Walled Garden at Scampston, just off the A64 on the way to Scarborough.
Previously run by Jacqui Pern from the Star at Harome, its latest incumbents are those nice people from The Yorkshire Soup Company (now Yorkshire Provender) Belinda and Terry Williams. There’s much more than soup on the menu though; a couple of good looking plates waft enticingly by, destined for someone with a bigger lunchtime appetite than ours – (the chicken and ‘Provencal’ vegetables and rosemary fried potatoes looks particularly appealing) – sandwiches in chunky, home made bread (mum has smoked salmon and crayfish tails with citrus mayo and watercress, and pronounces ‘there’s a fat mouthful of fish in each bite’) and this plate of chunky home made hummus and olives, a snip at £4.75.
My hunt for passable espresso anywhere in the county hasn’t ended here however, on account of the slightly murky double which arrives without crema, and at 3 quid, a rip off. The cakes are better value; huge slabs of flapjack, scones as big as elephants feet and waistline-busting squares of squidgy brownie. Can’t be tempted though – we’ve got four days of cooked breakfasts ahead!