Eating Owt: Well worth the wait

THE editor of the Darlington and Stockton Times is a gentle, well bred soul who - amid all those other things - frequently writes the restaurant reviews in our sister paper. In March he reported, not over-enthusiastically, on the Frenchgate Hotel in Richmond.

It was supposed to have been reborn. Malcolm Warne, the editor, thought it curate's eggy, more of a beau gestation period.

He considered the lounge to be "like a posh doctor's waiting room" - possibly a D&S euphemism for pox doctor's waiting room - the furniture uncomfortable, the room chilly, the portions frugal and the view, of an overflowing skip, disagreeable.

What really hurt new owner David Todd, however, was the repeated reference to "laminate" flooring, when it wasn't just best English oak but best English oak from a house once owned by Alan Shearer, the well known Tyneside demi-god.

Sick as two short planks? "I wasn't very happy," David mused.

The D&S had enjoyed the food, though, thought the standard of cooking "very high", praised the "meltingly soft" duck, the "excellent" bread and butter pudding and the attentive service.

Should a Michelin inspector be contemplating a visit, added Malcolm, he'd be best advised to wait a month or two. Exactly two months later - not the Michelin man, though proportionately built - we went.

The verdict is altogether less conditional, the sentences less suspended. It's off the ground and fast rising.

Recommendation would be damn near unequivocal, in fact, were not many readers likely to be deterred by the thought of more than £20 a head for Sunday lunch, even before drinks and coffee are added.

Six days shalt thou labour, and then what?

The lounge is now wood stoved, aromatic, comfortable and immensely relaxing, the cooking imaginative and the end product attractively presented, the owner amiable and the temperature rising. Though work continues elsewhere the skip has, well, skup.

The only other diner, however, was an American clergyman - there's not much call for the D&S Times in Connecticut - spending part of his sabbatical on the Coast to Coast Walk.

The previous evening he'd toured Richmond's pubs, rightly concluding that they're a pretty desperate bunch. That morning he'd worshipped at St Mary's and been much taken by the welcome.

Most English churches were cool, he said, and he didn't mean "trendy", either.

The following day he'd be coasting through Bolton-on-Swale, where lies Henry Jenkins, whose survival until the age of 169 was attributed to a regimen of nettle soup and daily dips in the river (first having broken the ice).

"Gee," said the minister, an American phrase of doubtful provenance but meaning "Hadaway and tittle."

To little surprise, perhaps, the hotel itself is in Frenchgate, thought by David Todd (and not alone) to be one of England's finest Georgian streets. The Green Howards war memorial is at the top, next to it a pleasant pub called The Ship which everyone seemed to have abandoned. There was only one in there, an' all.

A plaque a few doors down records the birthplace of John James Fenwick (1846-1905), who was educated at the corporation school, became a draper in Stockton-on-Tees and founded the now famous Newcastle department store in 1882.

Formerly in medical marketing, Mr Todd and his wife Luiza had looked at 200 other possible places before buying the Frenchgate last year. The basic restoration, he says, was done in 19 days.

"As the joiners walked out, a party from one of the Richmond guilds walked in."

Things got off to an impressive and a very surprising start. He had cask conditioned bottled beers - including Richmond, a more-ish brown ale - from the first rate Darwin Brewery in Sunderland. Keith Thomas, Darwin's director, just happens to live over the road.

Soon the Frenchgate plans to offer beers from the Wensleydale Brewery, too. "They have those in my corner store," said the lone Congregationalist.

The dining room is semi-formal, attractively and properly set. The floor appears flawless.

The Boss started with white crab meat ravioli with an exquisite ginger, lemon grass and coriander sauce, we with a fettucine with crispy bacon, "cultivated" mushrooms - cultivated, aren't we all? - parmesan cheese and fresh basil.

The bread - Guinness bread or butter milk rolls - had been made that Sabbath morning. It was lovely.

She followed with roasted cod fillet with a cassoulet of white haricot beans and a bouillabaisse (chowder, more or less) essence. We had braised oxtail faggot with roasted shallots, mustard mash and a "flat" parsley sauce.

"You hardly ever see oxtail in the butcher's these days, but you wouldn't know because you never go there," said The Boss, a trifle unnecessarily.

The cooking is composed and confident, the flavours distinctive and well matched. While it is true that those who could eat a horse would be better carrying on up to Middleham, it's modern British not nouvelle French. The dark chocolate torte was terrific, the mixed spice panna cotta came with poached plums, the coffee (£2.50) was served with half a dozen extravagant chocolates.

The Todds plan shortly to open for lunch, to develop a bistro and fine dining room and to make the garden out the back an all-year round attraction.

We told David that we'd much enjoyed it, confessed that the D&S Times was an older sister and admitted that there really wasn't a bad word to be said. On the count of nine, he raised himself from the canvas.

l Frenchgate Hotel, Richmond, North Yorkshire (01748) 822087. Presently open Tuesday-Saturday evenings and Sunday lunchtime. No problem for the disabled. Three course dinner or Sunday lunch about £22 a head without drinks or coffee.

IT'S National Sandwich Week. It's always national summat week. More than 70 per cent of sandwiches are made for lunch, cheese the favourite filling. Around 12,160 million sandwiches (it says) are eaten in Britain every year, 60 per cent bought by men. The longest pre-packed sandwich was 2.5 metres. This is what the trade calls a filler.

THE Station Hotel in Northallerton is named for obvious reasons, posters recalling the days when a cheap day return to Darlington was 2/10d (it's now £3.70) and a sortie to South Bank - should ever it have been contemplated - just a couple of coppers more.

These days the greater catchment area would appear to be North Yorkshire County Hall, straight across the road, though the turn-out last Tuesday afternoon suggested either that everyone brings their bait or that the local governors get hot under the white collar with any who cross the divide.

Food, lunchtime only, includes sandwiches, baguettes and hot dishes like lasagne, canelloni and cottage pie. Real ales included Tetley, Old Speckled Hen and a pleasant pint of Greene King IPA.

We had vegetable soup - it's probably always vegetable soup - and a very nice chicken, bacon and sweetcorn baguette with crisps and salad, £5.75 the lot.

Not fast track, understand, but a friendly reminder of stopping train Britain.

RUBY Tuesday, we're invited to two dos and can only make one of them.

John Taylor, restorative landlord of the Beamish Mary, near Stanley - and latterly running the pub at Beamish Museum with true Victorian verve - is reopening the Clarendon in Sunderland as a brew pub. It dates back to 1753 and reckoned the city's oldest.

Shafto's Inn in Spennymoor, part of the Whitworth Estate, simultaneously holds a re-birth day party - a "VIP gala launch", no less - promising seven nations in one restaurant.

Unable to effect dual personality, we'll be at one of them, anyway.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a group of people who dig for fossils.

A skeleton crew, of course.

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