AS colleague Chris Lloyd illustrated in his review last week, many of our town centres’ best-looking buildings are being re-purposed as the High Street revolution unfolds.
The HSBC bank buildings in Northallerton and Richmond have become restaurant/bars/lounges – striking in style and appearance but somewhat lacking in substance as far as the food is concerned.
Another conversion this year in Northallerton has been the town’s former police station in the High Street. It too has been converted to an eating house cum bar with 30 letting bedrooms.
This part of the High Street, along with Friarage Street, is becoming something of a hospitality hub. The Buck, now a Wetherspoons, and The Potting Shed means there is plenty of competition here.
The Northallerton Inn, as it is rather unimaginatively called, opened in June this year and through the hot summer months it was good to see many folk making good use of the tables set outside with views of the parish church and the hustle and bustle of the town centre.
Eating Out at The Northallerton Inn, the former police station on the High Street
The conversion of what is a listed building has been impressive. Compared with the blingy effect of the transformation of the old HSBC branch to Ontano Lounge, this is relatively restrained. There are elements of shabby chic combined with a gentlemen’s club schtick. There is little evidence of its former life as a police station which seems a shame but perhaps, apart from the cells, there wasn’t much to retain.
The beautiful front door with its columns, fantail light and pediment is an architectural detail well worth preserving but might also present the owners – the Newcastle-based Inn Collection Group – with a problem come winter.
When we called on a breezy, quite sunny autumnal Saturday, the front door was open. That made for a very breezy, slightly chilly dining area. We could see if they closed that very imposing Georgian door, it would not look very welcoming from outside, shut even. It will be interesting how they deal with that when the really cold weather – and the energy bill – comes.
Eating Out at The Northallerton Inn, the former police station on the High Street
The all-day menu is slightly posh pub grub. And a bit on the heavy side for those looking for a light lunch. Steak and ale pie, curry, a burger, pork belly, steak and chips, fish and chips … you get the drift.
Because the Northallerton Inn is part of 25-strong chain with more than 250 employees, the law currently says the calories of individual dishes have to be printed on the menu too.
I can’t make up my mind if this is helpful or depressing. Or just plain mystifying. Why, for example, is a Caesar salad with no chicken 922 kilocalories and an individual steak and ale pie with hot-water crust pastry, veg, chips and gravy 622. Perhaps I need to brush up on my home economics but that seemed decidedly odd.
Eating Out at The Northallerton Inn, the former police station on the High Street
As did the salad. For £16 there were seven Romaine lettuce leaves, rather a lot – too much in fact – of anchovy fillets, some decent Parmesan shavings, a lot of creamy, eggy dressing and croutons that hadn’t been left in the oven long enough so were not golden and crisp but just hard.
Sylvia’s Whitby scampi were much more successful. Fat and juicy in a light batter which was not too thick, they came with okay chips and peas for £16 (and 967 kilocalories).
Our starters were a similarly mixed bag. King prawn skewers (£10, 387 kcalories) were six beauties of the same high quality as the scampi but the “dipping” sweet chilli sauce turned out to be a drizzle of sauce. A bit hard to dip in a drizzle.
The asparagus and egg (£8.50, 480 kcalories) was very so-so. Not particularly fresh grilled asparagus was topped by an extremely anaemic-looking and under-cooked poached egg. The lemon and herb butter dressing was decent, as was the slice of sourdough it was all piled on top of.
Drinks and food were ordered at the bar so there wasn’t much service to rate. But Kathleen who looked after us was pleasant, friendly and did her best to juggle the need to keep the front door open and our request to not be sitting in a draught.
The bill with a diet Pepsi (£2.10) and zero-alcohol bottle of Peroni (£3.95) was £56.55. With the new ‘Spoons just 100 yards away across the road, I’m not sure this pricing strategy is going to work.
The Northallerton Inn
72 High Street, Northallerton DL7 8ES
Tel: 0191 580 3610 Web: theinncollectiongroup.com
Food served: 7.30am-9pm daily
Ratings (out of ten): Food quality 7 Service 8 Surroundings 9 Value 5
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