Food ✪✪✪ Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪
The Dyke Neuk
Meldon
Morpeth
Northumberland
NE61 3SL
01670 772 662
http://thedykeneuk.co.uk
I’ve got quite a mouthful for you this week, both in the name of this restaurant, and also in the vast portions that we ate on your behalf. I’ll get round to the latter shortly, but first let’s start with the Who’s Who.
I’ve visited The Dyke Neuk several times before, as the Wansbeck Valley in which it sits is one of my favourite parts of Northumberland. Despite its undulating hills and sparkling river, this area between Morpeth, Belsay and Kirkwhelpington is a bit of a culinary desert, and sadly the food the Dyke Neuk was never worth writing home about – let alone on these pages. Despite its location right next to Meldon Park, which used to have a decent garden café, it eventually found itself without anyone to take on its lease. In stepped a pair of local businessmen, George Bowman and Craig Taylor, regulars both.
So far so laudable, but as anyone in the rural pub game will tell you, a solid food offering is what brings that vital, spendy stream of townster folk out at weekends and evenings. Bowman and Taylor hit upon the idea of sub-letting the kitchen operation to an established business and persuaded Michael Hall, head chef at The Granby Inn in Longframlington (3 stars in my book) to be that business. And that’s why for couple of months, we’ve had the geographically confusing but nonetheless accurate moniker: ‘The Granby Inn @ The Dyke Neuk’.
