The Alice Hawthorn: Nun Monkton
The Alice Hawthorn – Sunday lunch in an exquisite little Yorkshire village, at a pub named after a famous racehorse on the biggest village green in Yorkshire.
The Alice Hawthorn in Nun Monkton, a most picturesque and peaceful Yorkshire village, stands proudly refurbished by the founder of the UK’s largest home emergency business who both lives in and commutes from Nun Monkton.
It feels like a high end pub stretching throughout the bar and restaurant area.
The look and feel to The Alice Hawthorn is simply stunning. It’s the kind of place that you take pictures of to give you inspiration for your own home. It’s got a very clean, modern, yet traditional, feel to it which is extremely well lit.
As well as creating a fabulous interior, the exterior hasn’t been forgotten either. It’s everything you’d expect in terms of plenty of parking, outdoor seating area for dining on warmer days, but then at the back of this area is The Alice Hawthorn’svery own vegetable and herb garden.
As well as being tended to by the chefs, the garden is also home to vegetables and herbs that have been grown by children from the local school, providing an area in which local kids can learn, explore and witness the fruits of their labour. What an amazing idea!
As it should be it’s the food for which I have the biggest praise. What a Sunday lunch!
The tables were laid out with simple vases of flowers from the garden, and the chairs so comfy. They were made for lingering, no hard dining chairs here.
We had bread and olives while we poured over the Sunday lunch menu.
And Sunday lunch was what we came for and it was outstanding, simply cooked well – no faffing, no messing, just a mix of flavours that complement each of the perfectly sourced ingredients.
Stuffed loin of pork, Yorkshire pudding cooked to perfection, beef dripping roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables and real ale gravy, and not forgetting the homemade apple sauce.
And my test of the restaurant, cauliflower cheese……….the best ever!
To finish we could have had croissant bread and butter pudding, boozy grapes and vanilla ice cream, or warm chocolate brownie, honeycomb and white chocolate mousse.
But we were restrained and had tea and coffee with petit fours.
We could have eaten in the bar area and chosen from a selection of Alice Classics, but we were so glad we nestled into one of the small dining areas.