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.

Jesmond Dene House Hotel

Food ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Service ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Jesmond Dene Road 

Newcastle upon Tyne 

NE2 2EY 

0191 212 3000 

www.jesmonddenehouse.co.uk 

[August 2018: The bad news - executive head chef Michael Penaluna has left JDH and is now to be found at Wynyard Hall. The good news - he has been replaced by Danny Parker, formerly head chef at Kenny Atkinson's Michelin-starred House of Tides, star of TV and radio and one of the most exciting talents in the region. Danny's new menu, team and ambition can be tested from October. In the meantime, I've revised the food rating to ✪✪✪✪✪]

Two weeks ago I stabbed a razor-sharp steak knife into Newcastle’s Miller & Carter restaurant, comparing their béarnaise sauce to Dulux emulsion paint, and castigating the baby food mush that came with their overcooked scallops, the tasteless risotto and wet, iron-tasting steak. Readers were quick to approve. 

“Ouch!” they went, followed quickly by “Reckon you saved us a few bob”. 

Quite a few bob, in fact, as a Twitter follower of mine called Sprocket Man pointed out: “Not cheap for what it was. Plenty of local places are better for the same money.” 

He’s right. £40 for a terrible meal is a ripoff. £40 for a brilliant dinner in a local restaurant could be worth saving up for. It can buy you an excellent meal in some of our very best eateries, including almost anything from the à la carte menu at Peace & Loaf. I'm grateful to him for inspiring this week's review - my task: find a meal in Newcastle that's infinitely better than Miller & Carter for the same price.

I chose Jesmond Dene House because I’d already re-reviewed Peace & Loaf earlier this year, and I haven't written about Jesmond Dene since 2013, when I gave its tasting menu 6 stars. To be honest, I feared it had gone off the boil and I didn’t want new readers of www.secretdiner.org being misled by an inflated rating.

Jesmond Dene House Hotel

Food ✪✪✪✪✪✪ 

Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Service ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Jesmond Dene House Hotel 
Jesmond Dene Road 
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 2EY 
0191 212 3000 

www.jesmonddenehouse.co.uk

***BEST HOTEL RESTAURANT 2013***

Years before I went underground, I endured an underwhelming tasting menu at Jesmond Dene House Hotel. It was overpriced and overblown. 

I don’t think Michael Penaluna was in the kitchen back then. He earned his spurs as the understudy of Pierre Rigothier, the chef who brought this restaurant back on track after a period of pretension. When Mr Rogothier went off to Paris to work in a Michelin-starred establishment, instead of hiring from outside, the management promoted Michael. What a good decision that was.

Jesmond Dene House Hotel

 

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

Jesmond Dene House 

Jesmond Dene Road
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE2 2EY

0191 212 5555

www.jesmonddenehouse.co.uk

[Re-reviewed in June 2011:

The bad news is that chef Pierre Rigothier has left to join Helene Darroze’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris as chef des cuisines. The good news is that the standard hasn’t slipped with the promotion of his sous-chef Michael Penaluna – indeed, on my revisit, I was even more impressed with the imagination and precision of the cooking.  Still the best value lunch in town.]