12:06pm Friday 12th December 2008
By Malcolm Warne
Accolades still justified at the CB
ARKENGARTHDALE on a crisp winter Sunday. Sunshine is barely touching the tops of the dale and the sheep are doing their customary thing of wandering across the road in front of cars and looking at approaching motorists with those ever-uncomprehending stares.
Some, of course, are occasionally victims and we pass the carcase of one ewe which clearly came off worse in a collision. Umm, lamb for lunch?
We are heading for the Charles Bathurst Inn, better known as the CB Inn, and it is four years since this fine old inn featured in these columns. In 2004, we enthused about the way Charles and Stacy Cody had rescued the landmark building from disuse and carried out an entirely admirable transformation into a modern dining pub in sympathy with its history and its spectacular upper dale surroundings. The food was good too, with much of it sourced from the local area, particular the meat and game.
Since our visit the world and his wife have beaten a path to the CB Inn. The Daily Telegraph’s Paddy Burt was a bit sniffy about the food but thought everything else wonderful.
The Sunday Sun’s Eddy Eats (geddit?) liked the Black Sheep and Theakston ales and thought the “scran” good too. “Mrs Eats – She Who Must Be Fed” – liked the proper cloth napkins.
Clearly encouraged by the success at the CB, the Codys have weaved their magic on another Swaledale inn that had fallen on hard times, the Punch Bowl at Low Row, creating another fine eating pub and hostelry.
Would the new venture dilute the previously-experienced excellence in Arkengarthdale? Happily no, on the evidence of a through examination conducted by our group of six who initially gathered in the CB Inn’s main bar to view the menu written on a large mirror at one end. Not the easiest thing to read perhaps but maybe that’s just my glasses.
Our meal didn’t quite reach the heights of Carlton Husthwaite’s Carlton Bore, about which we waxed lyrically and at length here recently, but it was still a fine Sunday lunch, the food and atmosphere satisfying all in our party of family and friends.
Collectively, we ran through most of the Sunday menu options.
There was roast beef and pork (£8.95), both very tender and generously sliced, a fresh-as-can-be very large grilled Dover sole with capers, anchovies tomatoes and lemon butter (£11.95) and a Swaledale lamb shank, mixed bean du pay and juniper jus (£12.95) described as rich and melting soft. The roasts came with crispy Yorkshire puddings and a plentiful selection of well cooked vegetables.
Desserts were equally well received, including a nicely bittersweet glazed lemon tart with raspberry sorbet (£5.25), an “amazing”
sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce and ice cream (£4.95), and a superb cheeseboard featuring a six local cheeses including Shepherd’s Purse of Thirsk, Wensleydale and Swaledale, three of them blue. It proved to be an enjoyable epicurean puzzle trying to identify them all.
The Codys were not present but the staff seemed well drilled and particularly adept at seeing to our needs despite the fact we were tucked away out of sight in one of the inn’s small separate dining areas. Someone among the serving staff’s had that sixth sense which told them when to appear with dessert menus, clear plates and to take further orders.
The bill for the six of us, including two bottles of wine and a number of soft drinks was a tidy £109 – £18 a head.
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