The Black Lion, 8 Market Place, Thirsk (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

The Black Lion, 8 Market Place, Thirsk

11:50am Friday 19th June 2009

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The new Lion: a pub to be proud of.

We’re all familiar with the numbers of British pubs said to be closing each week. Only last week, industry managers heard the number of closures had reached 53 a week. The Tenanted Pub Company Summit was told this added up to 2,750 closures each year – almost five per cent of the UK pub market.

A combination of rising costs and tough trading conditions has accelerated this figure at a frightening pace from 39 just six months ago. Most will never reopen.

Set against that context, where’s the hope?

Well, park up in Thirsk’s lovely Market Place, and stroll towards Castlegate: you’ll find it on the left in the Black Lion.

I’m not that frequent a visitor to the town, but walking to the Ritz Cinema (another gem) in recent years, I’d always notice the sad emptiness of what appeared to be a moribund watering hole.

That changed last July, when Richard Bainbridge and Raymond Dyer took over the tenancy of the Enterprise Inns pub.

Yes, that’s correct. This is no free-reign freehold establishment: it is, I suspect, a pubco pioneer.

There must be an enlightened regional manager somewhere very pleased he or she took the gamble on these two men.

Mr Bainbridge has run York’s Theatre Royal and Billingham’s Forum Theatre over the years, teaching drama at Thirsk School in the interim.

Mr Dyer has a catering background.

The pair are backed up with part-time help from Sara Haigh, who ran the Golden Fleece Hotel down the road for many years, and now comes up with some imaginative events at the Lion.

Between them, they’ve come up with a great formula that, well, just works.

The pub looks and feels good, although I was assured it was simply a case of pulling up old carpets to reveal slate and wood floors, and hacking tiles off the walls to reveal quality tongue and groove panelling.

Add a liberal coating of Farrow & Ball, a huge quantity of prints and curios, and some genuinely comfortable furniture and you have an attractive, welcoming place in which to eat and drink that no contract pub furnishing firm could ever match.

The welcome and service throughout last Thursday night’s visit was warm and faultless, the beer (cared-for Black Sheep in my case) good and the food… Owen Moody and John Gibson more or less job share the head chef’s role and are doing it very well.

A beautifully hand-written double-sided sheet of A4 contains everything on offer for dinner: a good spread of options, but not so much to leave indecisive diners agonising over the menu.

My wife’s soup of the day (cream of lentil, £4.50) was fine and tasty enough for such a plain offering. My asparagus and Parma ham Hollandaise (£4.75) was far more interesting: beautiful to look at and to eat, the spears wearing a tightly-wrapped waistcoat of ham and the whole doused in a tangy combination of Hollandaise and balsamic vinegar. Perfectly appetising.

Anna opted for a chicken breast filled with Mrs Bell’s Yorkshire Blue, “masked”

with a leek and bacon cream (£12.50). A rich, tasty combination.

My trio of lamb cutlets came with a courgette, red onion and pepper stack and sat in a redcurrant and mint jus (£14.95). Again, the dish looked gorgeous. It wasn’t the tenderest lamb I’ve ever eaten, but delicious and perfectly cooked nevertheless.

Side dishes of new potatoes and a mix of Mediterranean vegetables were fine accompaniments.

To finish, I squeezed in a good selection of cheeses – revealed from under their charming old-fashioned dome with a flourish at the table (£4.75). Anna’s lemon possett, with a home-made ginger biscuit (£4.75) was perfect. Hard to believe something could be so lemony.

Pretty much a perfect meal, plus a large glass of Rioja, a fizzy water and a pint, for £56. This puts it in the realm of a treat out for most, but we’ve had very ordinary meals in dull surroundings for as much.

Some may groan at the thought of another drinking pub transformed into what they might dismiss as a posh grub ghetto, but they should take a closer look. The Lion has some nice areas well suited to just drinking, be it beer in the evening, morning coffee or afternoon tea.

A decked beer garden, complete with planted-up tea pots on the tables, is tucked away from any roads.

Conceived, run and cooked in by locals, this is no pub company “concept” or marketing mangle.

Fellow patrons last week were a mix of businessmen, couples and girlfriends catching up on the gossip – some over food, some over a pint or a glass of wine or a newspaper.

One local businessman told me he’d stuck with the pub from its previous incarnation: he was clearly chuffed to still have a Lion to take pride in.

● ShopLocal cardholders can get five per cent off all lunch time and evening meals.

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