In Tune

Stories and Songs on today's free French CD, with The Times

Navigation - link to other main sections from here

From The Times

August 12, 2006

Hipping Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire

The almost perfect hotel has Stephen McClarence overflowing in praise for the food

An unexpected problem here: our room is a delight, dinner is delicious, service exemplary. We rack our brains, but can find nothing to fault.

Then my wife has a brainwave. “Got it!” she says. “There’s no shower curtain, so the water spills on the floor.” What a relief. The place isn’t 100 per cent perfect after all.

This restaurant with nine rooms manages to be both modern and charming (a rare combination). It’s a few miles from the faultlessly pretty town of Kirkby Lonsdale, and is nominally in Lancashire, but also on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and almost in the Lake District.

Hidden from the main road by a small plantation, Hipping centres on a stone-built 17th-century house with wistaria and magnolia at every turn. The receptionist greets us with unaffected enthusiasm, offers tea and home-made biscuits, and a choice of two rooms.

We choose a rhapsody in white: decor, furniture, even — a tad impractically — the carpet. It risks clinical chill, but actually combines style with comfort: two armchairs, cushioned window seats and a view over an elegant tree-edged garden, with a fountain, well-kept lawn and well-fed rabbits.

Downstairs, in the plush lounge, where the colours are warmer, we tell the French head waiter that we’d like to go straight to our table. “I’m afraid we don’t do that,” he says politely. “We start with canapés in the lounge. We regard it as a dining experience.”

Preening pretension? No, he’s right. The meal is perfectly choreographed and served with friendly informality. The kitchen, headed by Jason Birkbeck, a former Young Chef of the Year, knows exactly what it’s doing and the menu, with its impressive vegetarian range, makes sure diners know, too.

I go for “pan-fried fillet of line-caught halibut, hand-rolled macaroni, sautéed wild mushrooms, mushroom cappuccino and truffle essence”.

It’s superb, as are the starters — asparagus or blue cheese salads — and my wife’s vegetarian shepherd’s pie (she gives “crispy pig’s ear” a miss).

There’s so much care here. Every pea seems hand-reared, every dish presented as an exquisite example of the Paul Klee school of culinary art.

The restaurant is a 15th- century hall with tapestries and a minstrels’ gallery. Perfect for medieval banquets if they fall on hard times; but I don’t think that’s likely.

Bottom line: Stephen McClarence paid £190 for a double room, with dinner and breakfast for two, and £19.50 for wine.

Sampling the fare: Three- course dinner at £42.50.

What we think: An object lesson in running a hotel.

Best thing: Everything really, apart from . . .

Worst thing: The missing shower curtain.

Access all areas: Two bedrooms and the restaurant have wheelchair access.

Need to know: Hipping Hall (015242 71187, www.hippinghall.com), Cowan Bridge, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire.

Room: 9 out of 10.

Food: 10 out of 10.

Service: 10 out of 10.