General Tarleton

The General Tarleton is a 250 year old coaching inn with fourteen bedrooms; owned and run by John and Claire Topham. For some eighteen years John was head chef at The Angel Inn at Hetton near Skipton, where he played a major part in winning its national fame and many awards.

Now he and Claire have brought their expertise and experience to bear on the General Tarleton, applying the same high standards there and achieving considerable recognition, especially from the major food guides.

One of their principal achievements has been to bring up to a high standard the guest rooms. All are individually decorated and well equipped with the little extras that make a stay comfortable and memorable, including tea, coffee and hot chocolate making facilities, with home-made biscuits, flat screen TVs and wireless internet connection. Beds are dressed with crisp white linen, either duvets or sheets and blankets, and big bottle Molton Brown toiletries await your pleasure.

However good the rooms may be, and believe me they are, the feature of the General Tarleton that has been at the root of most of their Awards has been the food. People can and do come to enjoy the surrounding countryside, but they want to return to a good meal, with friendly company and no pretension. Head Chef Chris Elliman offers food that wherever possible has been sourced locally, and is in tune with the seasons.

One brasserie-tinted menu serves the bar and dining room alike, the only difference being in the location and, let it be said, the frills. This is a menu with charm and variety on the grand scale, the sort of menu you look at and wonder if you dare order a bit of everything.

General Tarleton, whose habits when waging warfare earned him the title of "The Butcher", apparently liked his soup, so we start with The General's Fish Soup, though he seems to have reverted to type when it came to homemade black pudding with Nidderdale hot oak roast smoked salmon. Had he been around today he might have been tempted by slowly braised belly until he realised it was pork. Whitby is not far away so some pretty fine seafood finds its way to headquarters, including crab and scallops.

The Little Angels menu, by which description some people might just recognise their children, includes whole hog sausages from Bishop Monkton, the village not the Prelate, fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding so that's them kept happy.

On the big chaps menu there is oxtail shepherd's pie, local steak and ale pudding, which seems a terrible thing to do to Timothy Taylor's Landlord but I suppose it's in a good cause, especially when they use Black Sheep bitter for the batter that encases the fillet of cod.

Broccoli is triumphantly made edible by the brilliant idea of linking it with Hollandaise and almonds, only one of a series of scintillating ideas they have here to make vegetables actually attractive - crisp green beans with bacon snippets, anybody?

History does not record the General's attitude to wine - presumably as long as it was red it was ok - but there is no doubting John Topham's affinity to the subject. Using careful buying and a modest mark-up they are able to offer striking bargains on a list that has character and breadth.

There is more, much more to this well-found inn with rooms. One click on their Website and you can share it too.