Fine food’s call to Arms

Then the food got more ambitious. The Yorke Arms won a Michelin star. Somewhere along the line, ham and eggs dropped off the menu.

Happy day then to arrive at this village inn, at West Tanfield, with a waft of woodsmoke in the air, and find a blackboard outside the back door announcing “Welcome to the Bruce Arms: Home-cured ham, free-range eggs, hand-cut chips, £10.95”.

It all fits. For the last year or so, The Bruce Arms has been under the directorship of Hugh Carruthers, a talented chef who spent five years at the Yorke Arms during its late ham-and-eggs period.

The Bruce Arms’ version is as good as I remember; juicy gammon, with maybe a subtle honey glaze – definitely something sweet going on there – two perfectly fried eggs and proper chips. Simple and delicious, with or without the walk.

In fact, Hugh Carruthers does the difficult of job of simple and delicious very well. You can glimpse him in the kitchen, in whites and heavy rimmed specs that make him look more like a chartered accountant, though few sober accountants would approve a two-course set lunch of this calibre for £12.50.

Today begins with ribollita or brawn, followed by mackerel or plaice and chips. The ribollita is terrific: an exquisite bowl of “peasant” soup, with tomatoes, spring onions, beans, savoy cabbage and bread nicely finished with a dollop of pesto. No Italian peasant ever had it so good.

Next up, brawn. Who makes their own brawn apart from a chef who knows how to make good food out of the cheapest ingredients? Veggies look away for brawn is made with the meat from a pig’s head. Cooked, picked over, seasoned and held together by the meat’s natural jelly, then pressed into a mould to make a rough terrine, it’s gory and labour intensive but rewarding. Here it comes in a slice with toast and pickles. Its intense porky savouriness leaps out.

My main course, mackerel fillet from the set menu, looks a picture. A plate of vibrant green broccoli, peas, baby leaf spinach and new potatoes is topped with a perfectly fried mackerel fillet and a garlic and anchovy sauce. The package is healthy, cheap, beautiful and, I’d say, simple, except that the sauce coralled garlic, anchovies, capers, a spot of chilli, a splash of vinegar and more to give a lovely sharp foil to the oily fish.

What with the ribollita and this, I’d had my five-a-day of vegetables, my Omega 3 and my politically correct fish all in the space of two courses.

I deserved a pudding, and their vanilla pannacotta was excellent. Served with delicate stalks of new-season rhubarb and a thin shortbread finger, it was as elegant a dessert as £5 can buy.

Elsewhere, starters on the à la carte, lunch or evening, are priced around £6, with mains rising from £10 to £16.50 for rump steak and chips or roast halibut. Good beer, usually Black Sheep and a guest ale; a short but tasteful wine list; efficient, informal service.

Hugh Carruthers seems to have got it sussed. Not only can he cook, but in 18 months he’s reinvigorated the Bruce Arms by bringing a modern sensibility to its Georgian solidity. Decor (a work in progress in the main dining room) is shabby chic – wonky whitewashed walls with shades of Farrow & Ball, exposed beams, stripped boards and vibrant oils painted by friend and artist David Stead, whose gallery is in the stables next door.

You can sit on a sofa by the fire with a pint as easily as taking a snack or a full meal at one of the slate-topped tables in the bar or dining room. Among the paraphernalia, we found a framed scorecard of the shooting exploits of the local Marquis of Ripon before he dropped dead in a grouse butt, in 1923. From the age of 10, nothing was safe from his gun. In total, he shot more than half-a-million creatures, including 241,000 pheasants.

The local bird life must have recovered from his holocaust as a shooting party was blasting away as we strolled along the banks of the Ure after lunch, And if any of the game ends up at the kitchen door of the Bruce Arms, it will not find a better final destination.

* The Bruce Arms, Main Street, West Tanfield, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 5JJ. Tel: 01677 470325; www.brucearms.co.uk Open: Tue-Sat noon-3pm and 6pm-9pm Sun noon-3pm

* Price: Three-course dinner for two, including bottle of wine, coffee and service: approx £80.