How the Michelin-starred Pipe and Glass is doing for South Dalton what Rick Stein did for Padstow

y timing has rarely been more impeccable. Just as I walk into the Pipe and Glass, the Michelin announcements are made. James and Kate MacKenzie and their band of merry staff have retained their star for the 13th year. I remember the pub before Mr Michelin came visiting and it was just as good then. It’s just got better with age. Like a decent Parmesan.

In fact, as I sit in front of their wood fire with a glass of something cold, perusing the specials, I notice an old P&G menu framed on the wall. It’s from 1990, well before the MacKenzies bought the pub. Surprisingly, it doesn’t read that differently from the food on offer today. Relatively traditional pub grub with a twist. Partridge with apples and Calvados, for instance, could easily still be on the menu. As could venison chops with juniper and thyme.

Not that the current Pipe and Glass is copying the earlier incarnation. The cuisine is simply what best suits the setting. Same then as now. Why go further afield when you have game from the Wolds, fish from the North Sea, veg from surrounding farms and herbs from the pub’s own garden, all utilised in the best way possible? For instance, to start with dessert, you may question why you’d go to the expense of ordering a sticky toffee pudding or a trifle in a Michelin-starred pub. But this is the best sticky toffee pudding you’ve ever had. And that trifle will ruin every other trifle experience for the rest of your life. That’s the point. This isn’t the most elaborate or experimental food you’ll ever eat, but it is the best version of these dishes you can encounter.

Not that the dishes are ever served entirely traditionally. There’s always something to make you raise both eyebrows. Salt beef hash cake, for instance, appears to be a solid, unshowy starter. But it’s the details. Yorkshire rhubarb ketchup, fried quail’s egg and crispy pickled onion rings. I’d never considered frying pickled onions before, but I’m never making onion rings any other way from now on. Yes, the hash cake was superb, the quail’s egg perfect and the ketchup noticeably rhubarby, but it’s the pickled onion rings that will live longest in my memory.

Similarly, my main of parkin-crusted loin of deer had me in its grip the second I read the word parkin. Game often needs something sweet to take the edge off and using crumbly parkin for the task is a genius, unexpected move. The juicy pink loin is further supported by beautiful sticky red cabbage, rhubarb pickle and a gravy rich enough to avoid paying tax. Also, lazily leaning across the deer is a haggis pasty. Basically, a crunchy fried cone filled with haggis, it’s unusual and delicious.

Equally inventive is the starter of North Sea dressed crab Waldorf, a salad comprising lovage, apple, ginger and brown crab that appears like a ghost made of foam inside a tall glass. Serve it to someone without telling them what it is and they’d probably guess it was some sort of fluffy dessert. The brace of dill beignet on the saucer enhance this appearance. I challenge you to find a better disguised crab salad.

And then, it’s back to the traditional; the legendary Pipe and Glass fish pie. Various fish bits topped with parsley mash and a cheddar crust and served with a brown shrimp and pickled fennel salad. It sounds like it could be ordered from any pub anywhere, but I know someone who regularly travels from Norfolk simply to indulge in this pot of perfection.

And so to the puds, or afters, as the menu is rightly labelled. Five reasons to love chocolate really needs no explanation. A plateful of the best ways of assuaging your cacao needs. And the slight reprise of sticky toffee pudding, which is enhanced with stout ice cream, shards of walnut brittle and a little glass of stout.

James and Kate have been admirably cautious with their expansion plans. No chain of identikit restaurants, no range of MacKenzie pickles in Asda. They’ve built rooms onto the pub in a manner entirely in keeping with the original building, they’ve reshaped the outside dining spaces to offer more choice and they’ve bought a former lambing yard round the corner and turned the buildings into accommodation for diners.

Slowly, judiciously, the tiny hamlet of South Dalton is becoming what Padstow is to Rick Stein. And that’s no bad thing. The pub should always be the centre of any village and the Pipe and Glass is definitely the beating heart of South Dalton. And the centre of the Pipe and Glass continues to be quite magnificent food.

Food 5/5

Welcome 5/5

Atmosphere 5/5

Prices 5/5

Pipe and Glass, West End, South Dalton, HU17 7PN. Tel: 01430 810246. www.pipeandglass.co.uk. Open: Tuesday to Saturday, 12-2pm and 5.30-9.30pm, Sunday 12-4pm.