Seasons Restaurant The Station Station Road Richmond (from Darlington and Stockton Times)

The Richmond Station project has been supported by this newspaper from its inception so readers may wish to bear this in mind when evaluating this assessment of its restaurant.

Seasons Restaurant is in the wonderfully refurbished Station but it is not run by the trust that looks after the building. Restaurateurs Jane Galloghy and partner Ian Woodcock lease the space and run it as an independent business.

But what they have created seems to fit well with the rest of what is the most exciting thing to happen in Richmond for years.

Firstly, the old Victorian Gothic station building which opened in November last year is a wonderful structure in which to create a restaurant.

Seasons occupies the central area where, until the closure of the station in 1968, the trains used to depart for Darlington. It is split into a formal dining area and a lounge/café/bar area by seethrough screens which cleverly separate without destroying the sense of being in one space.

Not so clever is the is rather leaden and sentimental prose about the wonders of seasonal food which adorn the screens but we will not comment further on matters of literary taste for fear of readers thinking of pots and kettles (black, for the calling).

Despite the high roof with its ornate ironwork, the ambience is surprisingly intimate, assisted greatly by the tables being decently spaced out and a subtle lighting scheme which brings out the warmth of the stone walls. It also helped that, on the midweek evening we visited, we were the only diners, although there did seem to be a few customers using the café/bar. It was also cosy which was something of an achievement in itself given the cavernous space and the mid-January chill outside.

We had heard reports about the service being somewhat erratic in the early days but we had no complaints about the young and charming staff who looked after us. Granted, they were not run off their feet but they managed not to hover too obviously and sensed when their presence was required.

We were initially slightly perturbed by the "Christmas menu" (it was January 10) we were given but after reading it realised it was not particularly festive. Certainly, there was no turkey (praise be) and the nearest thing to a Yule-themed dish was mincemeat-stuffed pork tenderloin. We later learned the menu was about to be changed.

Sylvia started with seared queen scallops, crispy black pudding and pancetta on honey mustard dressed leaves (£6.95) and enjoyed two plump and perfectly soft bundles of melting flesh. She thought the small triangle of black pudding a little meagre but said the dressing on the salad was superb.

My Jerusalem artichoke soup (£4.95) was thick, creamy, delicately flavoured, served in a giant soup bowl, and came with some great crusty bread and plenty of butter and balsamic/olive oil.

Sylvia's eaten a lot of steak over the years but rated her peppered ribeye with skinny fries (£13.95) among the best. A large and wellaged piece of beef, it was tender and flavoursome. The chips were perfectly crisp.

The sure touch shown with the scallops was well to the fore again in the grilling of my halibut (£15.25), which was served on a bed of wilted spinach and came with a patty of herby crushed new potatoes. A beautifully presented dish, I thought it could only have been bettered by a slightly more generous serving of an excellent cucumber butter sauce.

We finished with a faultless panna cotta with clove-scented blueberry compote (£5.50) for me and a decent latte (£2) for her.

After lingering for a while, enjoying the splendid ambience of this remarkable converted space, we settled a bill which initially we thought incredibly reasonable until we realised the dessert and coffee had been missed off.

At a lesser establishment, we might have been tempted to let them pay for the mistake, but as the corrected bill was £53.90, which included two small glasses of Pinot Grigio, we felt honourbound to point it out.

This was good value for a beautifully presented and an almost perfectly cooked meal.

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