Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪
The Morritt Hotel & Garage Spa
Greta Bridge
Nr Barnard Castle
Co Durham
DL12 9SE
01833 627 232
www.themorritt.co.uk
Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free? Advise when booking
[Warning: change of chef since review - requires re-rating]
Unless you’re Raymond Blanc, not everyone who rocks up to a hotel’s door is there for the food. Indeed, many of them won’t have the first clue about cooking. And yet here they come, paying good money to stay under your roof, full of expectation. How does a talented chef write a menu for this type of customer while also satisfying the gastronauts, not to mention scratching the itch of his own creative ambitions? Not easily.
Lee Stainthorpe, head chef at The Morritt Hotel, just a dash southeast of Barnard Castle, has had a damn good stab at it. There are steaks, triple cooked chips and hearty sounding puds. But there are also gels, powders, puddings involving veg, and the odd ingredient that might have you scuttling off to Google, just to be sure. It was this latter fact, not to mention the two AA rosettes, that piqued my interest and saw us zooming down the A1 for an early evening dinner reservation.
