- What: A delicious lunch at a small stylish restaurant in a historic market town
- When: Lunch 12pm – 2pm, Tuesday – Saturday
- Where: Whites Restaurant, 12a North Bar Without*, Beverley, North Yorkshire HU17 7AB
- Telephone: +44 (0)1482 866121
- Visit their website
- Cost: Reasonably priced fixed price lunch menu for two or three courses.
Could This Be the Best Value Lunch in Britain?
That's what Valerie France, our intrepid eater in the North of England thinks. Read her review and see if you agree. Then scroll down to add your own recommendation for best value meal in Britain.
Great value dining is very different from a cheap meal. Nothing about Whites Restaurant, just by Beverley’s medieval North Bar, suggests that this is a cheap restaurant. The simple cream exterior, the single drape at the window, the charming black-suited waiter in spotless collar and tie – it all suggests style.
Enthusiastic young chef John Robinson is doing great things here, including an impressive tasting menu on Friday and Saturday evenings. But the best value kicks in at lunchtimes with his short, imaginative lunch menus. There are just three choices at each stage – starter, main and dessert – all prepared in the tiny kitchen beyond the open hatch by the man himself.
Everything is geared to the seasons and local produce. On a visit in May, crispy local pork belly came with duck egg and fresh peas. Roasted cod was garnished with that coastal delicacy samphire and, because this is Yorkshire, rhubarb made an appearance among the desserts.
Each dish is cooked to perfection and elegantly presented. Many restaurants could claim a similar standard of cooking but not at these prices. Two courses, plus a generous glass of wine and coffee were very reasonably priced indeed. The day before, we ate an equally delicious lunch at the acclaimed Pipe and Glass a few miles away at South Dalton and paid almost twice as much.
In many ways, lunch is my favorite meal of the day. And what a great end to a really enjoyable meal when the bill is deliciously small.
* You may be wondering about that address and asking, as I did when I first heard such descriptions, "Without what?". In parts of the UK, especially the north of England and Scotland, without is used as a direction, the opposite of "within." So this restaurant is just outside of the town gates - or Bar, another Northern term.
