Restaurant Review: Old Deanery, Ripon

The last time I ate here was back in the 1980s under the exuberant stewardship of Jurg and Jane Bleiker, and it was the poshest place I’d ever been to. It was an era when trout was served with almonds, salmon with strawberries and veal came in white wine and a lot of cream. There were no bookings and no dress code, policies not much heard of in those buttoned-up days.

The Bleikers moved on in 1988 after 21 years at the Old Deanery, first to set up a smokehouse and then to run the Malt Shovel at Brearton where Jurg is cooking still.

It was more eccentric in the 1960s according to Raymond Postgate editor of the 1965 Good Food Guide: “This is one of the strangest and (in its way) most excellent restaurants in the whole of the North,” he wrote.

Service was “demotically jolly and friendly but not expert”. Monsieur Louis, he says, “presides over it with deep gloom” apparently because his customers were ‘loutish’ and ordered nothing but fillet steak and sweet white wine.

Returning to the Old Deanery recently, the sandstone Jacobean manor house is as handsome as ever. Even the car park wall is grade II listed. The willows in the garden still looked lovely despite the sodden weather. Much has changed of course. The beautiful oak staircase is still there but gone are the Turkish rugs, the antique furniture and the soft glow of table lamps that I remember from the Bleiker days.

Today the temperature has been turned down. It’s cooler, more 21st century. A bar sits in one corner of the entrance hall; elsewhere are new leather sofas and low glass tables. Conversation echoes with the high ceilings and wooden floors. Warmth returned with our reception. Having tumbled in half an hour early in retreat from the Ripon rains, they graciously amended our booking, took coats and umbrellas and offered us drinks and menus.

The lunchtime deal is good value: £16.95 for three courses, three choices at each course and ambitious for the price. The ham and foie gras ballotine starter was ham and foie gras rolled up in cling film and cooked in a water bath. This version was chunky and flavoursome though the foie gras was hard to detect. It came on a slate served with rhubarb chutney and pieces of perfectly poached rhubarb, a good match for the savoury salty ham.

And then there were the mysterious white blobs. “Brioche foam” apparently. A new one on me, I came home and Googled it. The only mention was from Alinea, a restaurant in Chicago currently seventh in the “50 best restaurants in the world”, as an element in their 24-course molecular gastronomy menu. It didn’t look like foam and it tasted like sweetened whipped cream.

Pea soup was a lovely vibrant green, looking good and fresh, topped with a spring onion and mint salsa, a slug of oil and a dollop of creme fraiche. While it looked pretty as a picture it was a little thick in texture and a little thin on taste.

Nothing on the menu indicated whether the veal was the British rose veal which the RSPCA encourage us to eat to prevent the calves being shot or exported in crates to Europe. It would have been good to know. There was savoy cabbage, mashed potato and some wonderful wild mushrooms that gave the dish an extra kick. There was cream, too, just like the old days but not overdone.

Accurate cooking was in evidence again with the fillet of seabass. More problematic was an overloading of samphire and a similarity of taste and texture in the salmon croquette and fondant potato.

The cooking team here comprises Matthew Robinson, the executive head chef who has led the food style change since September 2010, Tim Mitchell, the head chef and dessert specialist, and an apprentice chef, Josh Scaife.

There’s plenty of ability and ambition, but niggles were getting in the way of complete satisfaction. Like the clunky cutlery. Like the butter so recently out of the fridge that it was a struggle to spread on their lovely walnut bread.

For dessert, chocolate ganache with popcorn ice cream might be better described as vanilla ice cream with popcorn on the side. As for the vanilla pannacotta, its “strawberry textures” brought a moderate strawberry sorbet and a shard of strawberry toffee. Too pernickety? Maybe so for a fulsome £16.95 lunch menu alongside that warm reception and service. The Old Deanery has so much location and heritage going for it that it could be the outstanding destination for miles around.

The Old Deanery, Minster Road, Ripon HG4 1QS. 01765 600003; [email protected]; www.theolddeanery.co.uk

Open: Mon-Sun 12noon-2pm & 5.30-7.30pm

Price: Dinner: Three-course set menu £29 plus bottle of wine, coffee and service, approx: £88