Eating Out review of the Raven Hall Hotel, Ravenscar

The hotel sits 600ft above the sea on a clifftop so exposed to the elements that they defeated even Victorian railway entrepreneurs who tried to build a resort – a new Scarborough or Saltburn – to take advantage of probably the finest views in North Yorkshire.

Raven Hall Hotel with the Panorama restaurant on the rightBefore our meal, we’d walked around the castellated cliff edge, marvelling at the steep drop down to the grey seals howling on the shoreline, and at the way the grey sea rolls in orderly rows of white-topped breakers into Robin Hood’s Bay. On the far side of the bay, the orange-topped houses of the distant village tumbled down the cliff into the sea.

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Our views, though, were disrupted when the wind picked up a squall and flung sharp-tipped droplets of rain that made our faces smart and so, holding onto our hoods, we retreated to the sanctuary of the Panorama restaurant.

Looking over the castellated wall of the Raven Hall Hotel towards Robin Hood's Bay. Picture: Diane StaveleyIt was this exposure to the elements, and the massive 600ft plunge to the stony beach, that defeated the Victorian entrepreneurs (Scarborough is only 230ft above sea level and Saltburn is just above 100ft, so the Ravenscar descent to the beach was unprecedented).

In 1885, the railwaymen built what is said to have been the most expensive line in the country along the clifftop from Whitby to Scarborough – it cost £27,000-a-mile, which is £2.95m in today’s values, which is a vast amount of money although it will soon be dwarfed by HS2, at £396m-a-mile.

Ravenscar station, when trains used to call here for a resort that was never built. The railway closed in 1965Then they laid out plots for hundreds of holiday homes. They even sold many plots to distant investors, but the wicked wildness of the Yorkshire weather meant they were never developed.

You can, though, still see the lines of the streets, the iron tops of the sewers, the old station, the closed trackbed and a couple of model homes.

Well, you can if the elements allow, but we’d been driven into the Raven Hall Hotel, built in 1774 on a Roman beacon station, and from behind the moving windows of the Panorama, we watched the nightfall as the inhabitants of Robin Hood’s Bay gradually turned on their lights until the whole north side was spangled by silvery pinpricks like the heavens on a clear night.

The outside of the Raven Hall Hotel at RavenscarThe Raven Hall has recently been bought and its new owners are doing extensive renovations. The menu we were presented with in the Panorama was very different from the only online menu I could find which hinted at a fine dining experience.

Still, it had nibbles, like olive and houmous, from £4, plus starters which went up to £12.50 for a Prawn & Crayfish Cocktail. Along with the straightforward – smoked salmon pate, tomato salad – it had an unusual hint of Japanese with Crispy Vegetable Gyoza – dumplings – for £9.50, or a Signature Poke Bowl for £8.95.

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Poke (two syllables) seems to be a Hawaiian dish off of-cuts, but here it was a vibrant collection of salads, beans and slaws on top of a couple of dollops sushi rice. Even with its attractively powerful miso dressing, I felt it lacked a focal point, but I could feel its raw greenness doing me good, even repairing the rain-blasted skin on my face, as I ate it.

Our son, Theo, who was celebrating his birthday, joined me in a starter with a good Ardennes Pate (£8.95), served with a long slice of focaccia and plenty of tomato chutney. He really enjoyed it.

Roast chicken with Bourguignon sauceFor his main course, he opted for roast breast of chicken (£18.95), which came with plenty of mashed potato and a truckload of Chantenay carrots – those short, stubby carrots that come in various colours and roll around your plate like felled skittles. He had a choice of sauces and the Bourguignon prevented it being too like a Sunday dinner (he rejected blue cheese and peppercorn sauces).

There were fishcakes, seabass and a seafood selection board on the menu, plus there were beef, chicken and vegan burgers.

The Poke Bowl main, with crispy tofuPetra, my wife, was drawn back to the Big Poke Bowl (£17.50) which, as a main course, came with either prawns, chicken or tofu. She chose the latter, crispily fried, and it provided the focal point that the starter lacked. She loved the freshness of the salads and edamame beans.

Braised beef with a Yorkshire puddingI selected the Overnight Braised Brisket (£19.50) which came in the Bourguignon sauce with mashed potatoes, a further truckload of Chantenay carrots and it was topped by an excellent Yorkshire pudding – crispy and clean. Yes, it too was pretty similar to Sunday lunch, but the beef was nice and gentle and the sauce was tasty.

Mash plus pudding meant it was more substantial than sophisticated but that, after an afternoon of being blasted by clifftop winds and fusillades of raindrops, was exactly what I needed.

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The good dessert menu had eight options but seemed to cover every base, from ice cream to cheeseboard with STP, brownie and mousse inbetween. Theo chose the apple and shortbread crumble with custard (£9), which was all that he hoped for, while I had the Iced Malt and Dark Chocolate Parfait (£9), which was much more than I had hoped for.

Iced malt and chocolate parfaitIt, too, was substantial, with the malty parfait much thicker than a mousse and carrying chunks of chocolate. It sat on a chocolate biscuity base and was topped with a couple of lumps of honeycomb and a shard of chocolate, plus plenty of toffee sauce. It wasn’t sickly or overly sweet, but it was remarkably good.

The prices were perhaps a pound more than their equivalents in a town restaurant, but you are paying for the Ravenscar experience, and the robustness of the meal gave you all the resilience you needed to explore this remarkable corner of Yorkshire railway history.

The view from the Panorma restaurant over Robin Hood's BayNext morning, the brilliant views over the broad bay were restored, with the orderly rows of white-topped breakers rolling still relentlessly to the shore, but the wind had now developed a cutting, cold steel edge – the trees around the hotel had had their leaves shorn off a full month before the more temperate Darlington.

Yet still people were coming to visit, just as the Victorian railway entrepreneurs knew they always would, only they were coming to pick over the pieces of failure of the resort that never was.

The details

Raven Hall Hotel, Ravenscar, Scarborough, YO13 0ET
Tel: 01723-870353
Web: ravenhall.co.uk

The ratings

Food quality 7
Service 8
Surroundings 9
Value for money 8

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