6 Best Restaurants in Yorkshire, England

With one serving a night and one fixed-price menu that changes seasonally, dining in this small (six tables), family-run restaurant is more like eating in someone's home. If you get tired of Whitby's ubiquitous fish-and-chips, Ditto offers more fine-dining alternatives like pan-fried pork loin with chorizo and root vegetable puree or poached duck breast with beetroot, cauliflower, and a soy and honey dressing. Desserts include a white chocolate and whiskey bread and butter pudding. Be sure to book well in advance.

Cars belonging to diners at this chef-owned country inn often fill the hidden away hamlet of Hetton five miles north of Skipton, such is the reputation of this highly regarded, Michelin-starred gastro-pub par excellence located in an early-18th-century building with contemporary decor and views across the Dales. Specializing in locally sourced seasonal food, such as beautifully prepared roast lamb, beef, and seafood, the restaurant features three-course fixed-price menus for lunch (£85) and a seven-course tasting menu for dinner (£95). The ancient stone barn conversion across the road has five well-equipped guest rooms, with another four contemporary bedrooms in a more modern building along with six bedrooms above the restaurant.

The Harvey Nichols department store's roaring success is partly due to the lure of this stylish café, a standout for food, city views, and dramatic, high-tech design. The well-crafted Modern British menu changes bimonthly, but is sure to have imaginative dishes like pan-fried turbot with a roasted pepper purée, herb gnocchi, and samphire, or honey and rosemary glazed duck breast with duck leg and potato terrine, carrot and star anise purée, and confit fennel. There's also a separate plant-based menu. Irresistible desserts include Maple syrup cheesecake with blueberry compote. It's not cheap, but a three-course set menu plus a Champagne cocktail for £25 offers better value.

This family-run restaurant in what was once a Victorian shop uses locally sourced Yorkshire produce to create a seasonal, highly imaginative take on Modern British cuisine. Selections include a girolle tartlet with barbecued sweetcorn and truffle; sea trout with asparagus, whey and roe sauce, and kombu vinegar; and summer squash with Comté veloutée, hazelnuts, and truffle pesto. Dishes are available as a five-course tasting menu or two- or three-course fixed-price menus (three courses for £65 at dinner, £38 at lunch). A 10-minute walk from Clifford's Tower, Melton's has an offshoot bar-bistro called Walmsgate Alehouse and Bistro on, unsurprisingly, nearby Walmsgate.

This handsome pub combines a cozy traditional wood-paneled bar with a restaurant in a contemporary glass-and-steel extension that specializes in traditional Yorkshire cooking. Using seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, options might include a beetroot and vegan black pudding Wellington; fish pie with locally caught salmon, cod, and monkfish; or slow-cooked pork belly with curried sweet potato. There's also a good-value two-course lunchtime and early bird set menu (£19.50).

With a Michelin-starred chef whose family farm is right down the road, this former drover's inn has a high reputation among foodies that belies its secluded location in a small Yorkshire village. Menus, which feature unusual combinations and esoteric ingredients, are based on what is available from the nearby garden or can be foraged locally; even cocktails include fruits and herbs made into alcohol with wood sorrel replacing lemons and limes. The 12-course dinner tasting menu changes daily but might include mains like halibut with razor clams and Oscietra caviar or scallops with turnips and fennel pollen and desserts like Jerusalem artichoke with white chocolate. There are no à la carte options, although there is a smaller tasting menu at Saturday lunch. You can stay over in one of the nine comfortable bedrooms, although only single-night bookings are available.