IMAGES: ANDREW HAYES-WATKINS


REVIEWS


EAT & STAY THE ABBEY INN BYLAND, NORTH YORKSHIRE • ABBEYINNBYLAND.CO.UK


CHEF TOMMY BANKS HAS BROUGHT FARM-TO-FORK DINING TO A REVAMPED COUNTRY PUB IN NORTH YORKSHIRE


A mouthful that tastes like a summer’s walk in a country meadow is surprising. But at Tommy Banks’ latest venture, the flavours of the bread and butter transport me to the North York Moors, which are just outside. Generous hunks of seed and mead country loaf come with mounds of leaf-green butter, laced with foraged nettle, parsley and wild garlic, and a tangy pounded cheese — a putty-soft blend of sharp raw-milk St Andrews and Berkswell. When the chef announced in 2023 that he’d


be taking over the Abbey Inn, where he started his career, there was palpable excitement. Not least because his nearby restaurant with rooms, The Black Swan at Oldstead, has a Michelin star and a stellar reputation. But the location is also a draw — the 19th-century pub is opposite the medieval ruins of Byland Abbey, which loom like a Turner painting outside the wood- shuttered dining room windows.


124 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL Inside, Banks has created a casual pub-


restaurant, with a Fleetwood Mac soundtrack and staff who actually ask if you want tap water instead of bottled. The drinks menu includes the purple parachute, a sweet and hoppy blackcurrant, apple and Yorkshire IPA ‘turbo shandy’. The dessert menu, meanwhile, is dominated by generous soft-serve ice cream sundaes featuring pleasant surprises such as douglas fir parfait and lemon verbena sherbet. Banks is a master of making food you


really want to eat and here he claims to have perfected the burger to end all burgers. The fat, loose patty is a pleasingly juicy mess, topped with a slick of sticky chicory jam. Other dishes on the menu are more interesting and elevated, however. And, as the chef’s family have worked the land in this area for five generations, it’s no surprise the menu centres around the best locally sourced produce.


There’s a slab of barbecued lamb, its crisp skin enveloping unctuous, fatty meat, the richness offset by fermented carrots cleverly made to look like a yolk, topped with a faux egg-white of sharp whey yoghurt. And then there’s the beetroot: heritage golden boulders and claret- coloured pablos, plated with salty ewe’s curd and sharp pops of cranberry, with a nutty linseed tuille. There are three bedrooms above the dining


area, all comfy and classically styled, with names like Abbots Retreat, a nod to the monastic history that can be seen from the windows. But this is a restaurant with rooms, rather than a hotel — it’s what’s downstairs and outside that guests will remember. Three-course meal with wine and a cocktail from £140 for two; doubles from £350 a night, including breakfast and £100 towards dinner. Lorna Parkes


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