Last year we nominated Paul Jackson’s Dexter beef tartare as our dish of the year. This week we went back just to make sure and can confirm it’s as good as ever, and just one of four superb dishes in their four course tasting menu which projects the Hare at Scawton straight into our Squidbeak Top Ten.
Beef Tartare at the Hare Inn at Scawton
Regular readers will know that our name Squidbeak came about through graffiti seen in a swanky restaurant describing a pretentious meal: ‘Squidbeak of a bum arse on a bed of bum gravy’. It sums up our aversion to overpriced, gussied-up food. So lengthy tasting menus, miniature portions and dots, dashes and smears on the plate are not our style. That doesn’t mean we don’t recognise creative cooking and clever flavour combinations as well as a dash of showmanship all of which Paul Jackson is bringing to the Hare.
It was a brave decision for a remote country pub to dump the a la carte for three, no-choice tasting menus (£30, £45 and £60, a full vegetarian and pescatarian menu and a great value £15 wine flight) but Liz and Paul Jackson have stuck to their vision and we think they’ve nailed it.