A COUPLE of weeks ago we were lucky enough to attend the White Rose Awards, Yorkshire’s tourism Oscars, and watched as two of our favourite eating places received the recognition they deserved.

The Star at Harome picked up pub of the year and Samuel’s at Swinton Park was voted restaurant of the year.

We have bored you before about the Star; suffice to say here that while it was understandable that it lost its eponymous accolade a few years ago it is one of those Michelin mysteries that it hasn’t got the star back.

As for Samuel’s, we have been on a few occasions and never found it wanting; a colleague’s experience with the service while enjoying a bar meal a few years back was, we think, an unfortunate and singular lapse.

But we haven’t sampled the Sunday lunch offering and the joyously celebrated triumph at the Leeds awards do the week previous was the cue to visit again.

Now at £28 for three-courses sans coffee this is among the most expensive Sunday lunches around but the surroundings have to be paid for and they are well worth the premium. On the sunniest of the recent Indian summer Sabbaths, Swinton Park looked its best as we drove towards the estate from Masham. As stately homes go, it is not the biggest or the grandest, but the lack of absolute stature is more than made up for by the setting and, once inside, the almost homely intimacy.

We’d booked for 2pm – last orders – and being slightly late, we were ushered to our table in the triple-aspect dining room. This is a splendid space, not only because of the views offered of the estate, but also the spectacular ceiling, the responsibility of Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, who bought the castle and estate in 1882 and sank his fortune made at Bradford’s Manningham Mills into, among many other things, the ornate plasterwork with its gold leaf rosettes.

As one might expect, everything else about the room and the tableware, cutlery, napery etc is top dollar.

Eagle-eyed Sylvia did spot a limp lily in one of the table vases but the sunshine streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows was probably too much for it.

Swinton chef Simon Crannage has a number of advantages in his position, chief of which is access to the UK’s largest hotel kitchen garden (who measured that, we wondered?) providing a year-round bountiful harvest of good things. With the Ure running through the estate there is plenty of trout too and both these sources made up my starter, the poached fish being very prettily presented with pickled vegetables, fennel toast and watercress.

Sylvia’s leek and potato soup was a generous bowlful of creamy, well-seasoned leekyness. She wasn’t a fan of the chunks of leek in the bottom but that’s a very subjective thing.

The starters came with a choice of fresh bread rolls and good salty butter.

For the main event, Sylvia’s roast sirloin of beef was faultless – tender, slightly pink, flavoursome – and accompanied by a Yorkshire pudding that was rated similarly highly for its light crispness.

My loin of pork was also top notch. Being so lean there is a tendency for this cut to be on the dry side and this was verging on that but it was rescued by a beautifully sweet-cum-tart rhubarb and ginger chutney and possibly the best crackling I can recall – sticky and crunchy without threatening dental integrity.

The gravy served with both roasts was a rich beef variety. Not a massive amount but if we wanted more I’m sure it would have been forthcoming.

The roast potatoes and vegetables were everything one could expect. Sylvia thought the roasties particularly good for their colour, crispness and fluffy interior. I liked the leeks and the cauliflower for their flavour and al dente qualities.

The other main course choices available were a fillet of salmon and a wild mushroom risotto.

For dessert, I plumped for rich but surprisingly light warm pistachio and olive oil cake served with raspberry and white chocolate ganache and a little raspberry sorbet.

Not fancying that, or the warm toffee and date (aka sticky toffee) pudding, or blackcurrent mousse/sorbet combo, Sylvia asked for and received some vanilla ice cream and excellent strawberries.

With our meals we had enjoyed glasses of a super smooth Prosecco and citrusy Pinot Grigio. Service was old-style Rolls Royce, as in smoothly formal but also subtly understated and not remotely stuffy. We felt well looked after.

The total bill, with the aforementioned wine and some mineral water, was £72.90 – more than some might want to pay for Sunday lunch but we urge you to give it a try – some things are worth paying extra for.