Lordstones, Chop Gate

What do London’s Hawksmoor, Gordon Ramsay’s Maze Grill and the Lord Stones cafe high on the North York Moors, have in common? Answer: they all serve top class steak cooked on the latest state of the art Josper grill.

The Josper grill (pr: Hosper, it’s Spanish) is a top of the range indoor charcoal grill that costs the earth and reaches temperatures of 500°, which is its secret. The high temperature caramelizes the meat on the outside and keeps it juicy inside, the recipe for a perfect steak.

For years The Lord Stones was a greasy spoon café in a wild and beautiful corner of the North York Moors National Park, now it’s been given one hell of a makeover by the new owners John Reeve and son Dominic who own the adjacent Urra Estate where they run partridge and pheasant shoots and rear rare breed Belted Galloway cattle. Now that they’ve acquired Lord Stones they can really show off that top class beef to the full in the shop that sells the fresh meat, in the restaurant and the cafe.

The café opens at 9am for breakfast: bacon sandwich, porridge, croissants.  There are sandwiches for lunch, steak and ale pie, Josper grilled king prawns, a Beltie Burger made with that Galloway beef and a chargrilled rump steak sandwich.

Lunch runs into afternoon tea while the evening explodes with the Josper grilled belted Galloway steaks: rump, rib eye, sirloin, fillet served with tomatoes, mushrooms, French fries and Pickering watercress at prices between £22 and £30 for fillet steak, which compares favourably with the steaks at Maze and Hawksmoor that go well over 40 quid.

And if steak doesn’t rock your boat there’s grilled chicken, burger, pork chop, sea bass all cooked on the Josper. Veggies as ever have a choice of stuffed red pepper. They’ll just have to fill up on sticky toffee pudding or hot Toblerone chocolate fondant

Open every day 9am to 9pm. Campsite and camping pods available for overnight stays.