No 19 Close House

Food ✪✪✪

Ambience ✪✪✪✪

Service ✪✪✪✪

No 19 Close House

Heddon on the Wall

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE15 0HT

01661 852 255

closehouse.com 

Accessibility? Yes

Gluten free options? Yes 

There have been some very tangible and objectively sensible reasons why some restaurants have felt relatively safe places to be over the last few months. Staff in face coverings, comfortably spaced-out tables, sanitiser at the entrance; that sort of thing. There are also strange and impalpable reasons why some of us might feel happier in one sort of place than another; reasons that probably don’t stand up to quite the same level of rational enquiry. 

I’ve always quite liked the look of golf courses. I’ve played a bit at various times, but there’s something else going on other than the fact that a golf course is the necessary precondition for a game of golf. There’s something about that lush green neatness, the reduction of nature - with all it’s wild and, frankly, dangerous unpredictability - to a comprehensible tapestry of grass, longer grass, sand and water.

Now, I’m no scientist, but Covid does at times feels like biology tapping us on the shoulder and admonishing us for thinking we had the upper hand, for assuming that we could pull it this way and that without creating some dangerous stretch marks. I think that’s what may be scariest about it. And that, I reckon, is why I found eating at Close House, with a lovely view out on to the manicured, orderly fairways, punctuated only by neat bunkers and pleasant water features to be such an oddly comforting experience. Does that make any sense? No? Ah well, not much does currently.

No 19, the restaurant at Close House is another on the list of places I’ve been meaning to get to for ages and am finally catching up with, in lieu of all the hot new restaurant openings that we’re not currently seeing. Those of you with a long memory may remember I did visit Close House once before, when there was an over-blown silver-gilt restaurant in what used to be the hotel. "Close, but not quite there yet," I concluded. It never did get there, because the whole place shut down. 

 

No 19 is a completely different kettle of fish or, more precisely, beer battered haddock. Under the normal run of things the menu features the favourite dishes of some of Close House’s “attached tour professional” Lee Westwood’s golfer chums. Want to bosh that golf ball like Sergio Garcia? Here, have an Iberico ham sandwich! An entertaining way of ordering lunch, however the ‘rona had resulted in a more limited menu when we visited. 

We still found things we wanted to eat, even if they lacked the endorsement of a polo-shirted superstar.

The No 19 scotch egg, for example, was a winner. Crisp crumb gave way to a thumpingly savoury forcemeat featuring a good whack of black pudding, and then a squidgy-yolked egg. Good scotch eggs may not be the novelty they once were, but I doubt I’ll ever tire of them. Saying that, No 19 could do with a sharper knife with which to make the “big reveal” cut. Ours arrived at the table looking like it had been exposed to the elements by a karate chop.

Tempura prawns were nicely fried, the batter being closer to tempura than to chip shop, which is always good, and the innards being sweet and fleshy. Thumbs up for accompanying these with some fried kale, another item I doubt I shall grow weary of. Thumbs down for the very odd “teriyaki” dip, which tasted like somebody had added a good shake of soy to a bought-n BBQ sauce.

There are few dishes so enjoyable when done right, yet so regularly trashed as the good ol’ Caesar salad. The No 19 version was nearly excellent, featuring a punchy, garlicky dressing, crunchy croutons and fresh gratings of proper parmesan. It all came a bit unstuck however via the inclusion of pickled boquerones rather than salted anchovies which was - for me at least - the culinary equivalent of driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Still, not bad, and the wodge of chargrilled chicken sitting on top of it all which made this a main course rather than a starter had picked up some nice smoky char from the grill.

Mrs Diner, feeling a bit flash, went for the fillet steak and was rewarded with a very tasty hunk of cow, cooked to medium rare and with a perfectly nice béarnaise. Why it is that in 2020 we still think a honking big mushroom and a whole, not-cooked-through-properly tomato are sensible accoutrements for the most expensive item on the menu is beyond me, but we knew what was coming when we ordered, so I guess it’s on us. The chips were a bit on the floury side, but nice enough when swooshed through the tangy béarnaise.

I took a wander out on the terrace while we waited for puddings to arrive, the better to admire all that neatness, the views towards the south side of the Tyne Valley and to catch some fresh air. Staff, smart in their waistcoats and cream fitted trousers ferried burgers to mostly men, and everything felt comfortable and comfortably well off. Apart from the face coverings it was easy to forget anything was amiss.

 

One of the efficiently friendly wait staff we spoke to told us that, yes, they had been unusually busy during August as everyone ate out to help out, but that there is always a solid cohort of diners who, like us, come here to eat without tonking little white balls all over the place. I can see why, especially at the moment. It’s a spacious venue, with nice views, outdoor space and a reassuring menu of familiar dishes which they can clearly - a few mis-steps notwithstanding - cook pretty well. A few tweaks here and there and this could be a really appealing spot to hunker down and pretend the world isn’t falling apart.

Puddings were - there’s a theme here - nearly really good. Mrs Diner’s crème brûlée was fine in the custard department, but sadly lacked the crisp burnt sugar which is pretty much the whole point of the dish. 

My carpaccio of pineapple with a mango sorbet was rather a lot of sugary exotica and could have done with some spice, or even something a bit savoury to contrast with the main flavours. Close, but not quite there. Our meal, with one glass of wine, came to £84.

The Queens Head

Food ✪✪✪

Ambience ✪✪✪

Service ✪✪✪✪

Queens Head Hotel

6 Sandgate

Berwick-upon-Tweed

TD15 1EP

01289 307 852

queensheadberwick.co.uk

Accessibility? No

Gluten free options? Yes

We had been sat at our table for a few minutes when we were politely asked by the waiter to stand up, so he could squeeze round the back of us and into the cold store behind. Polite, but also somewhat urgent, as he bore a whole deer carcass, and the thing looked heavy. It’s not every lunch that starts with you having to dodge out the way of one of the main courses. On the one hand, it was an unsubtle reminder of the realities of carnivorous eating. On the other, a very encouraging sign that this is a kitchen keen to work with good quality raw materials. 

Indeed, there were a number of encouraging things about our lunch, things which I should certainly like to encourage. I would like to be slightly more enthusiastic than I’m about to be, and I would be too if it weren’t for a few hiccups on the execution side of things. We’ll get to that in a minute.

First, it’s worth noting that the nice folk at the Queen’s Head were entirely hospitable when we asked, in the middle of a biblical monsoon, whether we might take shelter in their dining room a good half hour before the lunch service began. So much for our pre-meal perambulation round the streets of Berwick. As indeed they were throughout, on a weekday lunch rendered unusually busy by being at the fag end of Dishy Rishi’s special bargain month. The meal was punctuated by more attempted walk-ins - all knocked back as the place was fully booked - than any meal I recently recall.

 

Happily we had booked, so got to choose from an intriguing menu that sought inspiration from far and wide. Along with some local-sounding game and seafood dishes were a parsnip and coconut soup, a Paella and a spicy braise of aubergine tofu. I’m almost a little ashamed to say that in the face of such exotica we played it relatively safe.

Mrs Diner’s scallop starter was simplicity itself, and none the worse for that. Three plump specimens had received enough heat to caramelise slightly, coming perched on wilted ribbons of courgette and topped by a lemon and basil-flecked butter. Very pleasant, although removing the roes and using them elsewhere would have been advisable, as they were chewy little bullets.

My own starter was one of a couple of dishes where good ideas were lost somewhere in the business of getting them to the table. The flavour of the “sorbet style” beetroot mousse was full and punchy, and the texture once it had melted was smooth. The problem was that the slice that arrived on the plate was full of whopping ice crystals which made eating it rather akin to chewing on a beetroot flavoured snowball. Some pickled carrots and beets of varied hues were fine, but could not redeem the main event.

There being Berwick Lobster on the menu, it felt churlish not to take the opportunity to have it, especially when part-funded by the good ol’ taxpayer. A slight shame then that the thing was overcooked, some of the claw meat having fused to the inside of the carapace and all the fun nooks and crannies inside the legs having dried out. The flavour of the tail meat was good, but the other pleasures of the beast were very much diminished.

No such issues with my venison burger, which was a well-seasoned puck of mildly gamey joy, on a wodge of soda bread that sucked up the meaty juices, and under a blanket of powerfully salty melted blue cheese. With good chips (admittedly in a silly mini-fryer basket, but whatevs) and red cabbage coleslaw on the side, this was a stonking, warming plate of food. The deer being brought into this kitchen didn't die in vain.

Desserts and cheese were less excellent. The Yorkshire parkin and berry trifle featured rather dry lumps of gingerbread in a dull custard that lacked any real flavour, vanilla or otherwise. While adding a dash of glamour to affairs, the fact that it arrived in a martini glass only underscored the fact that that was a boozeless trifle, or at least I couldn’t detect any. For shame.

We ordered cheese because the excellent Doddingtons was listed as their supplier. I’m as certain as I can be that none of the four we were served were from that producer. They may have run out, but I would have thought it polite to advise of this on ordering. In any case none of the two blues nor two cheddars we were provided with were much cop.

But despite an underwhelming cadenza, and a few hiccups here and there, I’d still say that the Queen’s Head, the most northerly meal I have ever eaten for these pages, is worth your visit. With starters hovering around eight quid (including those scallops, a relative bargain) and mains around fourteen, it’s fair value. The menu is rather idiosyncratic, and I’m sure that if you order well you could navigate it successfully, coming out with three fine courses. Service was necessarily brisk given the number of punters, but welcoming and friendly. The dark woods and brick of the dining room are not cutting edge interior design by any margin, but that’s fine by me. The Covid-related hazard tape that adorned the floor added a touch of colour in any case.

And, finally, anywhere that is getting whole caracasses of animals delivered just as the lunch service begins is alright by me. Someone’s going to have to break that thing down, which takes a bit of skill and effort. Skill and effort are things worth seeking out.

Lezzet

Food ✪✪✪

Ambience ✪✪✪

Service ✪✪✪

Lezzet

Front Street

Four Lane Ends

Benton

NE7 7XE

0191 266 2777

lezzetrestaurant.co.uk

Accessibility? Yes

Gluten free options? Yes 

What with one thing and another, there haven't been many new restaurant openings across the North East of late. Fair enough, really. This has meant that since things started to open up again back in July, I’ve taken the opportunity to visit a few that have been skulking around my to-do list for longer than I’d like to admit. It has been fun and interesting and instructive to check out places that have been doing their thing for years, where the paint is entirely dry and opening week kerfuffles are but a distant memory.

I get to hear about restaurants in all sorts of ways. A press release here, a tip from a friend there. I get emails from nice readers very much like yourself, and I even mooch about on Instagram once in a while. The Turkish restaurant Lezzet announced itself to me in a rather more old fashioned and compelling way than any of the above.

My real life (yes, I am a real person) causes me to drive quite regularly along Benton Park Road, past Four Lane Ends Interchange. It is an entirely unremarkable bit of suburbia. However: head past Kwik Fit in the direction of the coast, and breath in. Should the wind be blowing in the correct direction you will be assailed by one of the most wonderful fragrances known to our species, as the impressive extraction kit of Lezzet restaurant belches the aroma of animal flesh searing over hot coal out into the Longbenton air. People around here must be permanently starving.

So finally, instead of muttering ”Christ, that smells good, we need to try that place” to Mrs Diner yet again, we actually pulled in, parked up and got ourselves mentally ready to attack mezze and grilled meat. The place is housed in a sturdy length of pale stone. The main dining room is large and spacious. More so than normal, since they’ve removed around a third of the covers. Tables were clothed, seats were comfy, the welcome was warm and Hüsnü Şenlendirici was showing his clarinet who’s boss on the stereo. Nice. 

The menu is large, spanning the canonical list of hot and cold starters, grilled meats and stews that you will be on first name terms with from any previous Turkish meals enjoyed in these Isles.

Patlican ezme was your smokey aubergine dip, tamed by yoghurt, but with a fair whack of garlic and tahini about it. This was delicious, as were the wodges of sesame-flecked breads which we used to demolish it, crisp without and steamy within. 

Sucuk, that brick-red sausage I’ve always thought of as chorizo’s cheeky younger sibling, was full of sumac, but could have been charred a little more over the grill. 

Elsewhere, hummus was fine, but a bit under seasoned and came topped with cubes of lamb which were oddly lacking in much flavour. 

A prawn casserole mezze was better, plentiful shellfish bobbing in a homely and comforting tomato-based sauce which seemed to contain an allotment’s worth of veg. 

The best thing we ate was a main course of chicken Iskender, in which chunks of breast meat had been kept miraculously moist despite clearly taking some ferocious heat from the grill. They came atop a tomato sauce that tasted clean and light and sweet and which was soaked up by some honking great croutons. An unfussy blob of strained yogurt sat at one end of this moat of rather heavenly food. We saw the last of the sauce away with the last of our bread in a moment of appreciative reverence. 

The wonderfully named Tif Tif Tandir, ordered from the separate specials menu was rather less excellent. Again lamb - usually a dead cert in the flavour department - was oddly lacking in, well, lambness. It had been cooked down to shreds along with “Anatolian herbs” which to my palate comprised oregano and sumac. It wasn’t terrible, but just a bit dull and samey. 

The house salad of chopped tomatoes, peppers, walnuts and pomegranate molasses was refreshing, but made me rather wish better tomatoes had been employed in its construction. 

Portions are large and so we debated getting a dessert, but were delighted we did as there was a flourish for a finish. 

A freshly cooked, unrolled pistachio pancake was brought to the table. This was slathered in clotted cream before being tightly rolled by our waitress and scattered with fresh pistachios. Phwoar and blimey. This, friends, was frigging delicious, if possibly diabetes-inducing. I commend it to you without reservation.

Service was friendly throughout, although on what was a relatively quiet night, we were abandoned to our own devices for a while, meaning I had to get up and track down a waitress to order that pud. Lezzet seems very much a family outfit, and some of those with whom we shared the room were clearly regulars. I drank a solitary glass of Öküzgözü, a red grape with which I will admit unfamiliarity, but which went perfectly well with the tomato-based sauces. Our bill came to £83. 

This was perhaps not quite the knockout flavourslam that the unbelievable aromas coming out of the kitchen had led us to expect. Perhaps we didn’t order brilliantly. However, Lezzet is still well worth your custom, doing a range of Turkish favourites in a room that feels like a very comfortable place to be in the current climate. What is more, it will continue to feel that way even as other places who have relied to some extent on their outside areas can no longer do so. 

The complimentary Lezzet-branded facemasks we got with the bill were a reminder that everything is still not right. But every good meal in a nice restaurant makes the world feel a bit cheerier, and that will do for now.

Little Green Social

Food ✪✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

83-89 Goldspink Lane
Sandyford
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 1NQ

0191 230 5167

littlegreensocial.co.uk

Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free options? Yes 

I’ve started viewing vegan meals as a sort of mental preparation for the time when we all are forced, by choice or peer pressure to eat this way. That time is probably here already really, it’s just that the majority of us who are still partly subsisting on things that once mooed, clucked or bleated are doing our best to delude ourselves. I know I am. On the one hand, I do bloody love steak. On the other, I saw a map recently which made it quite clear that should global temperatures rise 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, my house will be underwater. Maybe by then Elon Musk or one of those other tech guys or girls will have invented wearable gills? Here’s hoping.

Brinkburn St Brewery

Food ✪✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪

Unit 2
Ford Street
Ouseburn Valley
Byker
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE6 1NW

0191 338 9039

brinkburnbrewery.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free options? Yes 

Have we reached peak craft beer yet? Such is the hectic and exponential proliferation of flavour-forward fermentation that I’m finding it hard to keep tabs on Who’s Who among North East brewers. Not that I’m complaining, you understand. The choice of pint - or two-thirds, or whatever - in a decent pub is so far in advance of the state of things ten or fifteen years ago as to be unrecognisable. And, for those of us who like our imbibing to come with a side order of narrative integrity, that pub is ever more likely to be the tap room of the very brewery who made the stuff in the first place.

Namaste Taste of India

Food ✪✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪

195 Park View
Whitley Bay
NE26 3RD

07875 971796

(Facebook only)

Accessibility? No
Gluten free options? Yes

I had always vaguely known, but it was on an Indian cookery course many years ago that it was brought crashing home to me just how little subcontinental home cooking has in common with the Anglicised, vaguely Bangladeshi stuff we know so well from our own curry houses. The food we cooked and ate that day was relatively quick and simple, but completely delicious. No one-size-fits-all heavy ghee or cream-based gravies; the spicing was clear and to the point, with each ingredient contributing something worthwhile.

Crab and Waltzer

Food ✪✪✪

Ambience ✪✪✪✪

Service ✪✪✪✪

5-7 Marine Avenue

Whitley Bay

NE26 1LX

0191 251 9555

facebook.com/crabandwaltzer

Accessibility? Yes

Gluten free? Yes

The literalist in me was delighted to find that Crab and Waltzer, on the seafront in Whitley Bay, isn’t named because of some flight of whimsy on behalf of the proprietors but as a reference to things which can actually be found within its walls. If you are so minded, and manage to grab the relevant table, you will indeed be able to sit in one of the cars from an old waltzer. And, once thus seated, you will be able to order dishes containing crab. If you’ve always wanted to eat crab in a waltzer, well, this is clearly the restaurant for you. You should probably stop reading now and book a table. But for those of us with less niche tastes, this is also a place that does a few other things rather well too.

Mr Petit

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

46-47 Park View 
Whitley Bay 
NE26 2TH 

0191 280 9199 
www.mrpetit.co.uk 
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

People move to the coast for all sorts of reasons, and they’re often jolly happy to tell you all about them. 

“Oh, the schools are excellent, darling, OFSTED gave it flying colours.” 

“We just wanted a better quality of life, know what I mean?” 

“The smell of the sea at the end of every day...well, it’s just so energising.” 

All fair enough and wonderful, and not in any way smug, I’m sure. But why would a restaurant move to the coast? Perhaps we can ask Mr Petit.

Beeronomy

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Hood Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6JQ 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes
0191 260 2454 
www.beeronomy.com 

I know the ol’ catering biz is well known for its quick-sharp comings and goings, but sometimes I can’t keep up. 

The last time I ate chef Ronald Robson’s food was in the spring of 2017 at The Merchant’s Tavern down at St Peter’s Basin, where he was brought in to make their menu a bit more serious. It wasn’t quite a success, or at least not on the night I tried it. I subsequently discovered he’d moved on round about the time of my visit, so I wasn’t really eating his food at all. Just as well – I wasn't very enthusiastic.

Spanish City: 1910 Steak & Seafood/Trenchers

1910 Steak & Seafood 
Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Trenchers 
Food ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Spanish City 
Whitley Bay 
Tyne and Wear 
NE26 1BG 
0191 691 7090 

www.spanishcity.co.uk 
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

A small part of me is sad that the remarkable reboot of Spanish City hasn’t incorporated some element of the dodgems, waltzers and arcade machines that I hazily remember from a sepia-tinged yoof. 

On the other hand most of me is impressed by the sight of its dome, beautifully decorated inside, the exterior gloriously floodlit at night. And all of me is delighted that, in its rebirth, we now have eight new venues to get fed and watered by the coast in Whitley Bay. I suppose that costly refurb was never going to get funded through sales of rollercoaster tickets. 

The current food and beverage options include an outpost of decent Newcastle micropub The Split Chimp, a pancake and waffle house, a Champagne bar, a chippie - of which more later - and a tearoom. The premium offering, 1910 Steak & Seafood, is named after the year in which Spanish City originally opened; it also reflects the menu.

Jesmond Dene House

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪ 

Jesmond Dene House Hotel 
Jesmond Dene Road 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 2EY 

0191 212 3000 
www.jesmonddenehouse.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

So – this is a bit awkward. 

If only for reasons of civic pride, I’ve no interest in having a pop at any of our more venerable and venerated restaurants. On the other hand, the same rules apply to every review, be it a fresh new opening or an updated assessment of an old fave: one meal, unannounced, and I’ll pay my own bill. 

I’m quite certain that middling reviews were not what anyone envisaged when Jesmond Dene House moved to replace Michael Penaluna by installing Danny Parker as Executive Head Chef. Parker arrived last October from a head chef role at Kenny Atkinson’s House of Tides, in a move that caught the attention of the trade press, helped by positive showings on BBC’s Great British Menu. 

It looked from afar like a great move for everyone: Jesmond Dene got a young, hungry chef with knowledge of what is required to get the attention of the Michelin folk; Parker could step out from the shadow of Atkinson, taking over the reins of a more varied and wide-ranging food operation. It still might turn out that way (I really hope it does - I think he’s a very good chef). It just didn’t seem like it on the weeknight of our visit.

Kimchi Planet/Proven Goods

Kimchi Planet 

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

24 Wretham Place 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 1XU 

07366 066546 
www.facebook.com/kimchiplanet 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Limited 

Proven Goods 

Food ✪✪✪ 

Ambience ✪✪✪ 

Service ✪✪✪ 

Hoults Yard

Walker Road

 Newcastle upon Tyne

NE6 2HL

No phone number

www.facebook.com/provengoodsco

Accessibility? N/A

 Gluten free? GF doughnuts

Here’s how it was meant to go: Mrs Diner and I would take advantage of a rare free afternoon together to visit a couple of plucky upstart independent food businesses which had recently found permanent sites. I’d make some tired observations about how neither offered the level of comfort to which we - crashing snobs both - are accustomed to, but hey, who cares because the revelatory quality of their product and the sheer force of personality behind their ventures won us over completely. Hurrah! 5 stars! We’d go home, I’d bash out a thousand or so words about how chains are awful, independents are brilliant, proclaim it spiffing that there are so many in Newcastle, and everyone would be happy. Well, it didn’t quite go like that.

Stack Newcastle

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
(Sushi me Rollin’ were lovely) 

Stack Newcastle 
Old Odeon Site 
Pilgrim Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6QE 

0191 216 1415 

www.stacknewcastle.com 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Some 

Honestly, it’s a wonder that there are any shipping containers left for the ships. When Riley’s Fish Shack and Anna Hedworth’s Cookhouse used a couple apiece to open their businesses it had just a whiff of underground cool and felt a bit edgy. When By The River Brew Co opened up earlier this year it was as if the whole “not quite permanent” concept had been weaponised, to very good effect. 

With the advent of Stack, on the site of the former Odeon Cinema, shipping containers have gone full-blown mainstream. Give it a couple of years and we’ll all be living, working and loving in shipping containers. Watch out, Maersk.

Wolfmann’s Eating House

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

9A Stanhope Parade 
South Shields 
Tyne & Wear
NE33 4BA 

07714 525784 
www.facebook.com/WolfmannsEatingHouse 

The phrase “hidden gem”, is a double-edged sword. One of the joys of being The Secret Diner is to be able tip you the wink about unassuming but excellent places off the beaten track; however, doing so brings more than a frisson of guilt for those who thought they had these secret haunts all to themselves. 

So, if you have a favourite seat at Wolfmann’s Eating House in South Shields - and there are only about eighteen to choose from - then I’m sorry for what follows (you can blame Phil Dixon, who originally emailed me about it). This really is a cracking little place, with charm to burn and a well-cooked menu of unusually fun Asiana that deserves to find a wider audience.

Kiln

Food ✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Unit 4 
Hume Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE6 1LN 

0794 956 5013 
www.kiln.cafe 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

As the years skid past, painting my hair in ever lighter tones of grey, I become increasingly aware that I must be losing any credibility I may have had in the past to pronounce on what is, or isn't, cool. Unless, of course grey hair itself is cool (Lord knows, fashion is so daft that it might be), in which case I’m getting cooler by the minute. 

Anyway, forgetting how uncool I really am: every now and then I find myself somewhere in Newcastle that is so clearly, unambiguously cool (or hot, as I used to say back in the day) that it might as well be in Dalston, Kreuzberg, Williamsburg or wherever. It fills me with no little civic pride to note that Newcastle is able to see such places survive and maybe even thrive. And, usually, they’re in the Ouseburn. 

Whether it’s Anna Hedworth’s soon-to-be-moved-to-larger-premises Cookhouse, the ever-dependable Ernest, The Ship Inn with its riotously bright, tasty vegan food or any one of a few first-rate boozers, there is more good food and drink per square metre in Ouseburn - and always at wallet-friendly prices - than anywhere else I can think of outside the city centre. To this list you can now add the subject of today’s review: Kiln.

The Granby Inn @ The Dyke Neuk

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’.