Tell a Yorkshireman just ten years ago that the county would one day be a must-visit destination for the discerning foodie, and he’d probably tell you just what you could do on Ilkley Moor baht ‘at.
But fast-forward to 2016, and Yorkshire boasts not just more Michelin stars than any region outside London, but also two of the top three gastropubs in the UK. And that, as they say, is official.
The six stars (pictured from left to right below), of course, belong to The Pipe and Glass at South Dalton, The Star Inn at Harome, The Black Swan at Oldstead, The Box Tree at Ilkley, The Yorke Arms near Harrogate, and maverick newcomer Michael O'Hare's The Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds.
The Pipe & Glass and The Star Inn also hold the number two and three spots respecivly in the highly regarded Morning Advertiser/Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list for 2016. It’s a roll call that’s all the more meaningful for being nominated and voted for by insiders including ‘gastropub operators (who can’t vote for their own pubs), food writers, pubco catering development managers and executive chefs, celebrity and top hospitality industry chefs, pub guide editors, industry chiefs and food operators’. As the website says: “This really is the industry’s choice.”
The 2016 Top 50 Gastro Pub Awards were hosted by Tom Kerridge, pictured on the left, with Andrew Pern and Kate and James Mackenzie with their awards.
There’s another thing that James Mackenzie from The Pipe and Glass and Andrew Pern from The Star Inn have in common – they’re both members of the Face Publications stable. Andrew Pern’s two books Black Pudding and Fois Gras and Loose Birds and Game, and James Mackenzie’s On the Menu were all designed by Anthony Hodgson and published Face Publications.
All three books have won awards both nationally and internationally, and are now part of a garlanded chef library that includes two-Michelin-starred Sat Bains’ Too Many Chiefs, Only One Indian, and one-starred Graham Garrett’s Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls.
“We only publish a small number of books, but between them, our chefs have racked up an awful lot of awards. It’s simple, really – at Face Publications, we like to work with the best”