Revisits - Ruby Hunt and The Star Inn the Harbour

On Monday, D and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. And of course we did so by spending an entire weekend indulging our appetite for delicious food. We are consistent, at least, in our greed. It’s a shared obsession that is probably one of the primary reasons that we have managed to (more or less) stay together.

On Saturday night, we returned to our favourite restaurant of last year, Raby Hunt which is just outside Darlington. Holder of two Michelin stars it was a fantastic experience first time around (which you can read about here) and just as wonderful now. The only...I hesitate to use the word problem because it wasn’t the least bit problematic...was that many of the dishes on the set tasting menu were either the same or similar. As before, the signature razor clam with celeriac and almonds was a highlight:

And the kitchen’s pastry game is strong, especially when it comes to producing a chocolate and olive oil mousse which combines ethereal lightness with rich, cocoa filth:

But we both agreed that one of the nicest things we ate was, in fact, one of the few brand new dishes - a wagyu beef nigiri topped with sea urchin. Teapot, that was fabulous. The Japanese influence was, I think, a new direction for the kitchen and one I liked very much indeed:

It was a fantastic privilege to eat these amazing plates again but, given the plethora of other places out there which we are keen to try, and our limited funds, I would not be inclined to return for a good few years to allow time for a bit more variation to creep in. We discussed, as we drove away, whether one should prioritise the known and glorious or the unknown and potentially not-so glorious and reluctantly came down on the side of the latter. Although D intends to win the £110 million Euromillions Super Draw this week, at which stage it will become a moot point.

We then high tailed it across to Whitby, and Sunday found us on another revisit: The Star Inn the Harbour which I wrote about here.

Well, what a revelation. I don’t think it had been long open when we visited in April and the kitchen has really flourished since then. We liked it well enough last time round but this time a couple of dishes blew us away. A lobster and summer truffle mac and cheese was superlatively good:

And D was in raptures over his coley with a light curry sauce, declaring said sauce one of the nicest things he has eaten all year:

We will whisk a veil over a slightly over chilled dessert (we did feed back to the kitchen via our absolutely charming waiter) and say, rather, that overall we were seriously impressed and pleased to see that the wonderful produce from this corner of the Yorkshire coast finally has a restaurant that can do it proper credit.