I’VE never been entirely sure about Rockliffe Hall’s credentials as a dining venue.

Middlesbrough Football Club chairman Steve Gibson’s five-star “resort” south of Darlington is undeniably a cut above most other hotels and spas in the North of England but that doesn’t necessarily make it first choice for great food.

Not long after Rockliffe opened, one of the Sunday papers headlined its review of the hotel “It’s bling up North” – a rather snide, condescending description that could only have been written by a London-based sub-editor.

But the trouble was that the hatchet-job headline had an element of truth behind it, a feeling shared by many that Rockliffe was a triumph of style over substance. Little things like how the hotel originally suggested on its website that it was based “near Durham City” rather than owning up to its proximity to Darlington didn’t help to disabuse people of the notion that Rockliffe was something of an over-blown vanity project.

That’s grossly unfair on Mr Gibson, who has invested a small fortune and genuinely wants Rockliffe to be recognised as one of the best hotels in the UK – in a part of the country not previously noted for hospitality excellence.

And it’s not for want of trying. The flagship Orangery restaurant has been at various points very good – and very expensive – but the longed-for Michelin star has so far eluded it. The mid-range Brasserie, designed primarily to serve the needs of spa users, has had a number of guises but never managed to be better than average. The best bet has been the Clubhouse, teed up to look after the golfers but always popular with locals who don’t fancy the prices up at “The Big House”.

We called for Sunday lunch and our afternoon (we could only secure a booking for 2.45pm) got off to cracking start with our waiter Will, who we knew from Number TwentyTwo in Darlington. It turned out he could do much more than pull an excellent pint.

The Clubhouse looks like a modern hotel bar/dining room but has a major plus point – the view over the golf course. On this particular Sunday the course seemed to have a lot of water features but this turned out to be flooding from the adjacent raging River Tees. It made for a spectacular outlook.

The Sunday lunch offering is eight starters, eight mains and nine desserts priced at £19.50 for two courses and £22.50 for three. Not cheap but as we shall see reasonable value.

Sylvia started with a cheddar cheese and spinach soufflé served with a Swiss cream sauce. It was light as feather and also luxuriously rich. There was certainly no skimping on the cheddar or the cream.

My smoked salmon was a beautifully constructed dish which tasted as good as it looked. A softly cooked egg wrapped in cooked salmon and coarse breadcrumbs was very lightly deep fried, halved and served with some cod roe on top, a little salad and a smooth curried mayonnaise.

The starters were served with warm bread rolls and butter.

Sylvia’s main course choice was the roast beef, offered either medium or well done which is always a good sign. Sylvia opted for the medium and it arrived just so, quite thickly sliced but still tender and with great depth of flavour. The gravy was a proper meat juice/red wine reduction, the Yorkshire pudding was light and well seasoned and the roast potatoes were nicely browned and crisped round the edges. The vegetables were well cooked too.

I chose the duck pie, a soup bowl-sized pile of shredded breast meat mixed with pearl barley and root vegetables covered with a blanket of mashed potato. There was a side serving of sweet red pickled cabbage.

The duck was tender and ever-so slightly sticky from its long, slow braise. My only complaint was the size of the serving – it was simply too big for such a rich, filling winter-warmer-type dish. I left most of the mash and some of the duck.

I manfully soldiered on with dessert – treacle tart with honey and walnut ice cream. Perhaps because I had met my match with the duck pie, I found this too much. The tart was OK, I think, but my first mouthful was the ice cream and that was so powerfully flavoured with walnut I couldn’t really taste anything else. That was a shame because the tart was probably very good, certainly the texture of the shortcrust pastry base was excellent.

With our food we had enjoyed a beautifully fragrant, dry – if pricey (£33.50) –New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Tap water was freely offered with no attempt to up-sell expensive bottled mineral water.

Service – from Will and others – was universally excellent and our bill overall was £78.50 hardly a bargain but the surroundings, service and food justified it.

FOOD FACTS

The Clubhouse, Rockliffe Hall, Hurworth on Tees, Darlington, County Durham, DL2 2DU

Tel: 01325 729982

Web: rockliffehall.com

Open: Sunday-Thursday, lunch noon-3pm; Friday and Saturday, lunch, noon-3pm, dinner, 5pm-10pm

Disabled access easy. Vegetarian and gluten-free diets catered for.

Ratings (out of 10): Food quality 9, Service 10, Surroundings 8, Value 7