Visiting our beloved Lake District always fills our hearts with happiness. The views, the hikes, the landscape, and let’s not forget the superb array of accommodation and local food.
On our most recent visit to The Lakes, we started our road trip in Sedbergh, at The Black Bull to be exact. What started life as a 17th century coaching inn is now a gastro pub of some renown with 18 beautiful bedrooms, located on Sedbergh’s Main Street.
This was our first visit to The Black Bull and we soon realised what a popular place this is for lovers of the outdoors and in particular those like us, who are on their way to the Lake District. It’s the perfect stop-off.
Not just because the rooms are spectacular with amazingly comfy beds, but the food here is exceptional!
Run by husband and wife team, James Ratcliffe and Nina Matsunaga – (Nina is also Head Chef), they have a hospitality recipe with the perfect balance, warm, welcoming, friendly and somewhere you will want to go back to.
James grew up in the village of Ireby in the Lune Valley, which was to later play a significant part in his upbringing and his love of food. As a youngster James would spend time baking with his mum, especially when he was off from school, alongside this he could also be found out and about in the fields and lanes around his home foraging for fruit with his gran.
As you might imagined both experiences were to play a significant part in his developing love affair with food. In 2010, when he met his future wife Nina, who was born in Dusseldorf, Germany to Japanese parents, these two very difference food cultures came to play a big part in the underlying influences in the food Nina now creates in the kitchen.
The pair made the move to Sedbergh in 2014 and opened their first eatery, The Three Hares, which won a host of accolades and appeared in the Good Food Guide. Nina and James have a simple food ethos, to use only the best seasonal ingredients available from what they refer to as the neck of Britain, the counties of Yorkshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham, Derbyshire and Cheshire.
When they acquired The Black Bull, they embarked on 18-months of extensive refurbishment opening its doors in 2018, boasting a restaurant focussed on serving an array of delicious dishes crafted from the fresh produce available from the landscape surrounding it.
Each bedroom room has been carefully designed to emphasise The Black Bull’s beauty and history as a coaching inn, and every bathroom is unique . Ours had a feature glass wall separated this amazing (and huge) bathroom from the bedroom and lounge area and came complete with a free standing, very large bath and walk in rain shower. Modesty is preserved by a luxurious curtain which can be drawn across the whole of the glass wall.
For dinner we ate from the Bar Menu as the restaurant menu is not available on Monday and Tuesday. However, this is no usual bar menu!
Every dish is made and presented with the same love and attention to detail as that of the a la carte menu, using only the best and freshest ingredients. We enjoyed starters of Home Reared Tamworth Pork Chilli Verde and bread and Crispy Howgill Herdwick Lamb and spiced Korean mayo. Both delicious and the pork dish was a particularly hearty starter with a very enjoyable kick from the chilli.
Our main courses were a beautifully light Wild Halibut, shrimp, courgette, caviar and beurre blanc. That fish was to die for and made me vow to eat more halibut. The Howgill Hereford Beef Pie, mash and seasonal greens was another hearty dish and that pie was packed! The beef was tender and melted in the mouth, full of flavour and the pastry was….well simply perfect!
Sticky Toffee Pudding and a Selection of Ice Creams rounded the meal off beautifully. We retired to bed very happy and very full.
The Black Bull at Sedbergh is the perfect stop off on the way to the Lakes District, or on the way back – or both!
www.theblackbullsedbergh.co.uk
