The Garden Rooms, Leyburn

With a bumper loan from the bank, they built an enormous auction house on the edge of Leyburn – the small Dales town we know and love – but in the context of the national and international auction house business an isolated and hard-to-get-to place in the middle of nowhere. What city folk would call the boondocks.

Absolute madness, some called it, but it was a spectacular success, propelling Tennants from a small regional saleroom to one of the leading auction houses in the UK.

Last year, the family had another moment of apparent insanity, investing another sizeable sum to double the size of the existing salerooms to create exhibition, gallery and display space, a function room to accommodate 500, a shop, cafe and restaurant – collectively called The Garden Rooms.

And very smart it is too. No expense has been spared to create something seriously swish – a world away from the slightly ramshackle shed in Middleham the business was based only 30 years ago.

We paid a visit to the restaurant which opens Monday to Friday during the day and on Saturday sale days. Primarily it is designed to serve the needs of those attending auctions but there’s nothing to stop anyone from turning up just to eat. The same applies to the self-service cafe across the hallway.

We were greeted at the doorway by an immaculately turned out maitre’d who showed us to a table in the middle of a light and airy space with views over the car park to the Wensleydale railway beyond where we witnessed that day's steam special heading back to Bedale.

It is a luxuriously-appointed room. Sylvia thought it lovely. I did too although in some respects it feels a little bit corporate/hotel dining room and lacking the individuality of a proper restaurant but then it also serves a double purpose as part of the conference and banqueting space and has to, I guess, have a certain uniformity.

We had two menus to choose – the set Dales lunch (“with the exception of seasoning we are proud to say that every ingredient from the Dales menu is 100 per cent Yorkshire”) which seemed a bargain at £12 for two courses and £14.50 for three – and a carte with starters around £4-6 and mains about £8-16.

We were offered a jug of tap water straightaway (no attempt to sell pricey bottled water) and a wine list from which we choose one of the better whites on offer, a £27 Gavi La Battistina – a luscious, fruity and dry Italian which really did match the description of being highly quaffable. We don’t generally share a bottle at lunchtime but this just seemed to evaporate before our eyes.

Choosing from the Dales menu, I started with some tender stem broccoli served with a butter sauce and a blue cheese bon bon. Chef has to be confident of his supplier to simply serve three stems of broccoli and that confidence was fully justified by the flavour. It could have done with a teeny bit more butter sauce perhaps, The blue cheese bon bon was admirably constructed and cooked but let down somewhat by the strength of the blue cheese – it was just bit too sharp for me.

Sylvia’s carrot and caraway soup, served with some warm bread rolls and “top-notch butter” she said, was velvety smooth and well flavoured and seasoned. The caraway gave it a lovely aromatic quality.

Our main courses were superb. Sylvia’s handsome lump of breaded hake (£10.50)was meaty and fresh as a daisy, served with excellent chunky chips, peas and a super-rich truffled mayonnaise.

My Whitby crab balls (three of them, the size of golf balls), like the blue cheese bon were beautifully crafted, with the crab flakes tightly packed inside the deep-fried coating. They sat atop a puddle of a mild and creamy dill mayonnaise with some dressed leaves on the side.

Sylvia was justifiably tempted by white chocolate and orange cheesecake (£4.50) served with fresh orange and, at Sylvia’s request rhubarb ice cream instead of the orange ice cream listed on the menu (one could see chef resignedly shaking his head). The cheesecake element was rich but also a little on the gelatinous side of smoothly-firm.

Rhubarb ice cream was a feature of my dessert (which is why Sylvia knew it was available) along with poached rhubarb, granola and yoghurt. This was forced rhubarb from the famous Yorkshire triangle, mildly flavoured with very little of the customary tartness of the summer season variety. The dessert was a great combination of textures.

Service was top drawer. We liked the little white gloves the waiter/waitress donned when bringing dishes to the table. It didn’t strike us as an affectation, just a nice touch in tune with the formal surroundings.

One other aspect of the meal made it a bit special. Having the auctioneer’s commentary piped through from the nearby saleroom might not strike people as the ideal accompaniment for lunch but we enjoyed hearing what various things sold for. It certainly made a change from bland musak.

The bill, including the wine, was £61.50

The Garden Rooms, Tennants Auction House, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 5SGOpen: Monday to Saturday, 11am-5pm (last orders 4pm)
Tel: 01969 621146 Web: tennantsgardenrooms.com
Vegetarian options. Disabled access easy

Ratings (out of ten): Food quality 9 Service 10 Surroundings 9 Value 9