I look for reviews that tell me both the good points and the bad points of a place. When we were thinking of visiting Hambleton Hall we could only really find people saying good things about the place, so we approached the place with some trepidation but actually we needn't have worried. This is a historic home that now functions as an hotel and a restaurant, please note that we didn't stay in the hotel so this is purely a review of their amazing restaurant.
I dropped my wife off at the front door whilst parking the car, it was fairly cold outside and, by the time I turned up a minute or so later, one of the staff had already spotted her standing in the cold and asked if she would prefer to come in and wait inside in the warm. These people are totally committed to making you feel valued, pampered and welcome, which for ordinary people is very important when you are visiting a posh place such as this and might well otherwise feel intimidated by your surroundings.
You can compare Hambleton Hall's food to the food at Midsummer House in Cambridge, or the menu gourmand that we enjoyed at Raymond Blanc's "Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons" in Oxon. There are differences in style between Hambleton Hall's food and that of Le Manoir, but both are world class chefs producing dazzlingly ingenious works of art on a plate. No razzamatazz at Hambleton Hall but, having said that, the dignified service at Hambleton Hall again sits perfectly with the historical surroundings in which you're dining.
Both meals had occasions where I had to ask my lovely wife "How the (devil) do they do that?" The first course at Hambleton Hall sounded as if it was a plate of tomatoes with some basil ice cream because, like Le Manoir, they revel in giving deceptively simple descriptions for their food when in reality it is extremely complex and sophisticated.
So there were various forms of heritage tomatoes, probably the most intriguing of which was a shot glass which was half full of a transparent liquid, a couple of tiny coloured beads floating in it and then a creamy white substance sitting on top of the liquid which looked a little like a swirled Mr Whippy ice cream. The clear liquid tasted like tomato juice, the tiny coloured floating beads turned out to be miniscule cherry tomatoes, the creamy Mr Whippy lookalike was also tomato flavoured. The "How do they do that?" moment was when I noticed that in the four corners of the plate, partially concealed by a herb sprig, were halves of those minsicule cherry tomatoes, again perfectly sliced in two. Could you really cut them in a ham slicer without chopping off the end of your finger?
There were only a couple of occasions during our visit here when I didn't feel completely comfortable. We were being served at our table in the dining room by a young lady with glasses who appeared to be of some sort of oriental extraction, and it wasn't clear whether she was partially deaf or ignoring us. I said to her that we were a bit concerned about our daughter having to travel home from work on the bus in the dark, she completely ingored me and just walked away, similarly I had to call her four or five times when I was trying to attract her attention. All the other staff were absolutely fantastic and made us feel really pampered. They were even willing to do things that you wouldn't even dare to ask in some fine dining establishments, like asking if I could swap my venison course from the tasting menu for the Teal with black pudding dish from the à la carte menu, which also meant them finding a new paired wine. There really is no way that you can fault their service whatsoever, I can't remember ever feeling so welcome before in a posh establishment such as this. One or two of the guests actually said hello to us when we first arrived, shivering, in the lounge prior to the meal.
We had cocktails before the meal, a non-alcoholic one for me and an alcoholic one for my lovely wife, we had the tasting menu (which is six courses) along with accompanying wines, no coffee, a "discretionary" service charge of 12.5% was added and it came to £300 in total for two people. Again, as with Le Manoir, this is a lot of money to pay for a meal but it really is top class food so if you love good food it is definitely worth saving up and coming here to celebrate a special occasion, because those memories will last you a lifetime. What we really like about this place is their total commitment to making guests feel welcome, pampered, appreciated, valued. They also know wine back to front and have an amazing cellar, with many bottles within the reach of mere mortals such as myself. Highly recommended, I have no hesitation giving them five out of five and we would definitely go back. read more
