Northumberland’s cinematic landscapes harbour a burgeoning food scene

You’ll be forgiven if Northumberland doesn’t instantly spring to mind when someone enquires about the UK’s most delicious corners. But not for much longer. This ceremonial county in North East England, on the border with Scotland, has welcomed many a foodie and many chefs and mixologists ready to satiate their cravings in recent years. From sleek restaurants with Michelin Stars to seafood shacks and the distilleries worth swining by for a botanical tipple at, these are the places we’re bookmarking ahead of our next visit.

Mr WolfUnscripted Photography

Tynedale

Hexham is regularly voted one of the happiest places to live in Britain. Although that judgment is likely to cause local teenagers (including my own) to roll their eyes at the lack of venues playing grime, this shouldn’t distract from the contentment that envelops the little market town like a warm blanket. That feeling of wellbeing is particularly in evidence on Saturday mornings when the bimonthly farmers’ market is in full swing and the crop of independent shops that have sprung up in the town are humming with customers seeking out old-school toys at Mr Wolf, retro homeware from French & Wilder and eco gifts at Matthias Winter, or forming an orderly queue for cardamom buns outside The Grateful Bread Bakery.

On sunny days, the French windows of the snappily appointed Beaumont Hotel are thrown open to views of the park, with its Edwardian bandstand that will have boomers thinking of Trumpton. The Beaumont’s restaurant offers the sort of punctilious modern cooking that convinces visitors from the south that there might just be sophisticated life north of Rutland. This autumn, the hotel’s owners, Roger and Magda Davy, will expand their empire with a wine bar and restaurant in the Market Square overlooking the newly restored 18th-century covered market, the Shambles. The neo-Norman Church of St John in the nearby hamlet of Healey has two award-winning contemporary stained glass windows – one by James Hugonin, the other by Anne Vibeke Mou – and hosts regular pop-up exhibitions by local artists.

Bracken shepherd’s hut at Hesleyside HutBrent Darby

The Grateful Bread BakeryRebecca Ridley

For all Northumberland’s manifold charms, there was a time not so long ago when the county lacked anything that might have been termed a food scene. This is no longer the case. In 2021, Swedish chef Alex Nietosvuori and his Northumbrian partner, Ally Thompson, won the region’s first Michelin star for their restaurant Hjem in the village of Wall, a few miles north of Hexham. It closes its doors in December, after which the couple will move their refined skills to Freyja, a new purpose-built sleekly Scandinavian building 15 miles east along the Tyne near Wylam. A little way down Hadrian’s Wall from Hjem, Pine is another gastronomic pilgrimage spot, where chefs Cal Byerley and Ian Waller create dishes that resonate with Northumberland’s fresh, wind-scoured landscape.

Skylark treehouse at Hesleyside HutsBrent Darby

Raven tower at Hesleyside HutsAmy Louise Roy

The Kirkstyle Inn and Sportsman’s Rest, an elegantly cosy pub with rooms, is in the heart of what naturalist David Bellamy called England’s last wilderness – high up in the South Tyne valley, perched amid scenery of mystical charm and power, it feels gratefully sheltered from the weather even on a warm summer’s day. Chef Connor Wilson’s rich and hearty food makes grand use of local game: the venison haunch is sensational. In the valley of the North Tyne, Hesleyside Huts is set in the oak-fringed grounds of the country estate of the Charlton family, whose ancestors led one of the infamous bandit clans that called the area home during Tudor times. Understandably, the handcrafted treehouse there draws gasps of admiration, but Rowan, a shack with hints of the Wild West about it, is appealingly reflective of the region’s outlaw history.