The Bridge Inn at Whorlton may boast great food, but its decor provokes the column to cattiness.

HAVING long since seen the writing on the wall - as opposed to the blackboard, which helps explain a school report that was forever unsatisfactory - we were invited last Tuesday evening to write on the tablecloth instead.

"Comments please," it says on the paper top cover at the Bridge Inn at Whorlton and, as if to underline that they're serious, two Ikea crayons - red and yellow - sit alongside the cutlery.

"Ikea sells almost everything," The Boss confirmed.

Should the idea appear a little bizarre, sort of caff naff, it is by no means as twee as what was once the public bar.

The room is kitsch rich, twee's a crowd. There are pot pigs, delft dogs but most of all, there are cats of every shape and form - even a little embroidered cushion proclaiming: "The more I learn about men, the more I like my cat."

It is overpowering, assault and cattery, pussy galore and then some, the Bridge (if it must be said) too far.

Whorlton's in Teesdale, a few miles east of Barnard Castle, perhaps best known for its lido. We knew the Bridge 30 years ago when it was run by a lively lass called Dorothy Sayer and the pub was regularly visited by Barney polliss - strictly socially, of course.

Once we were even invited to the policeman's ball, or some such. (Jokes may be inserted to taste.)

Now it's transformed, a fully-carpeted, no-smoking restaurant where the secret policemen's ballroom used to be. The Boss contemplated a game of hangman on the tablecloth - we'd not played since the bairns were railway children - and for some reason, also recalled the idle days before they were born when we enjoyed a seven-week snakes and ladders challenge. "You won 97-21," she said, thus affirming what they say about snakes, if not necessarily about ladders.

The restaurant's spaciously attractive, particularly for those who wouldn't have kittens at the sight of even more cats. The food had been warmly recommended and lived up to its billing.

The cooking is robust, punchy, full of proper flavours. The menu, game and fish prominent, is imaginative and, by and large, successfully executed. We shall return to it shortly.

First, alas, one or two further quibbles. A place of the Bridge's ambition should have proper napkins and not a last-minute substitute for Izal; a place of the Bridge's culinary commitment shouldn't have knives which could be issued to Suicide Row without fear (as Ebenezer Scrooge misanthropically put it) of decreasing the surplus population; a place of the Bridge's evident enthusiasm for detail shouldn't leave diners chasing round for the condiments.

There was also a problem with the soup bowls, in which so many fancy Dan restaurants now insist upon serving up everything on the menu. How do you rest cutlery on the side without the damn things slipping down into the sauce below and having sticky fingers all round?

Perhaps Ikea has the answer.

The other side of the Bridge is its memorable cuisine, the duck confit accompanied by a plum and ginger sauce which sang of sunshine if not by a knife with which properly to assail it. Finally, we ate the thing like Fred Flintstone, when Wilma's back was turned.

The venison sausage, black pudding and smoky bacon which followed was also from the carnivorous golden age, too, accompanied by a Madeira sauce as dark and rich as a Catalan contessa.

Vegetables included carefully cooked carrots and mange tout, decent chips and (surprise, surprise) cauliflower cheese.

The Boss began with tiger prawns and scallops in a Thai sauce - £8.50, the most expensive starter - followed by a much enjoyed vegetarian balti curry. "Proper vegetables," she said, "not the mush you usually get on such occasions".

Puddings included Bailey's banana bread and butter pudding - a ventriloquist's nightmare, although he could have been spared the first bit, because the whiskey was imperceptible.

All this had been accompanied by a pint of Ruddle's County and another of Jennings' Cumberland - pint and a mineral water, £4 - and by cheerful service. Three courses for two between £40-£50.

The column may be considered in lieu of comments elsewhere: been there, done that, couldn't be bothered with the tablecloth.

THE column's first experience of a so-called "gastro-pub" - once also the Bridge, now The Honest Lawyer at Croxdale - proved (Eating Owt, May 11) only that it was a pretty ghastly pub. We hear of another professing the tag.

The Spotted Dog at High Coniscliffe, near Darlington, has not only re-emerged claiming "gastro" status but seeks to define it.

"The atmosphere is unpretentious, informal, unfussy and - above all - fun. Top quality food can range from beans on toast to extravagant, restaurant-style dishes like lobster foie gras and sea bass truffles. Gastro pubs always sell terrific food."

We couldn't make the re-opening last Friday, but will catch up. Perhaps most appealing, of all, however, is that the Spotted Dog may be the first pub/restaurant in the area to be wholly non-smoking.

A survey showed that customers wanted it that way; they will not be the last.

THE column a fortnight ago composed further songs of praise for the Chapel Farm tea room, superbly situated at Whaw in Arkengarthdale, and may yet have sinned by sending readers on a fruitless mission. It's closed on Thursday and Friday ("our alternative Sunday" says Chris Best) but becomes a seven days a week operation during the school holidays. A blessed place, honestly.

Fury at Fathers' Day famine

TO the Nag's Head at Pickhill, off the Al in North Yorkshire, run admirably for 25 years or more by Edward and Raymond Boynton and with piles of guides around as testament to their sure touch.

There's the Good Beer Guide, Good Pub Guide, Good Hotel Guide, even the Good Shoot Guide.

It's 1.58pm, Sunday, and we're homeward from holiday. No problem with lunch, says the barman, indicating an extensive blackboard selection. The clean, distinctive pint of Sunset from the Captain Cook Brewery in Stokesley would have gone down well at any time.

At 2pm, the waiter came for the order, was asked to give it a couple of minutes, returned 60 seconds later and wrote it down. (Steak, kidney and oyster pie and seafood lasagne.)

A minute after that, 2.02pm, he returned to say that it was either pork or pork because the kitchen stopped cooking at two o'clock.

It was also Fathers' Day, and we left hungry. Paternalistic might not be the best word for the feelings towards the person in charge of the kitchen; fatherless may have suited him better.

Fermenting a fine reputation

NINE days previously, heading Walesward, we had again called into the Foresters Arms at Carlton-in-Coverdale, a few miles west of Middleham in North Yorkshire.

The pub's run by Richard Thompson, originally from Redmire in Wensleydale, and his business partner Peter Fairhall. We'd reported, rapturously, in February.

The lads had had a brewery in Suffolk, won national CAMRA awards for their beer, pulled the first pints from the Wensleydale Brewery shortly after our last visit. It's been so successful, they're already looking for larger premises. Foresters Bitter is a superb session beer.

Three of us lunched: smoked salmon with creme fraiche and lumpfish caviare, duck breast with an exquisite Cointreau sauce and dauphinoise potatoes, rampant wild boar sausage sandwich with salad for less than £25, the lot.

The place is unspoiled and worth a detour, the atmosphere convivial, the food great. Early doors (and closed Mondays), it's already one of the region's finest pubs.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get by crossing a parrot with a soldier.

A parrot trooper, of course.