So, when a famous restaurant critic [No Not Marina O’Loughlin…no, not Jay Rayner…Ed] turns up at your door, having begged a lift from some local…

…and the further north you go from here, the nicer the people get

Bedale is not exactly your regular stopping off point for Giles Coren. In our sadder moments [very, very sad…Ed] we’ve thought of recording the number of times young Coren gets himself out of London – and the answer is not many truth be told. And when he does he’s very effusive with his praise – almost to the point of irony? Is that a bit hard? [No…Ed].

Now Hansom’s is a nice little restaurant on Bedale high street, latterly a small eatery run by ‘Moggy’ Mason, of Mason’s gin fame.- and quite some history before that. When it closed it provided a great opportunity for someone to come along and fill the place. Along came Ruth Hansom, born in Darlington and Ritz trained, first female winner of Young National Chef of the Year.

We thought about going to their ‘soft opening’ but the only tables left were past our bedtime so we finally turned up for their £75/head tasting menu.

Giles gave it:

• Cooking 9
• Style 9
• Effort 9
• Service 9
• Score 9

And he thought Ruth was incredible. When we were there the food was simply great. A couple next to us, hailing from far-flung Wolverhampton, had come up specially and found a pub to stay in. They didn’t look quite so overwhelmed as Giles – perhaps a bit too much over sell? She’s doing great things and [allegedly] her husband Mark will speed you home in their electric Lotus. Not us though, we live about 0.5miles out of the range. We’ve got a good spread of places to eat in Great Yorkshire – let’s hope they survive.

Incidentally, Giles has heaped praise on another North Yorkshire stalwart – True Foods in Melmerby. 10 across the board. Really, really good but beware the never-ending wines…

Restaurant Hansom Bedale