WARNING: this review of Sunday lunch does not contain any sticky toffee pudding. Other desserts were consumed in its making. STP is the culinary equivalent of Himalayan balsam on our riverbanks.
Since it was introduced in the 1980s, it has taken over pub menus, driving out all other desserts. It has particularly colonised the roast dinner market where it follows beef and Yorkshire pudding as surely as Monday follows Sunday. But not at the Cross Keys in Eppleby, where the kitchen has recently been taken over by Alastair Ross, formerly of the Fleece Hotel in Richmond and before that at the highly regarded, but terribly small, Oak Tree at Hutton Magna.
So does this STP-free menu show a daredevil determination to tear up convention, or that a little imagination has been put to work on the time-honoured Sunday roast? READ NEXT: EATING OUT REVIEW AT THE SPOTTED DOG, LOW CONISCLIFFE Eppleby is among the pleasant villages scattered in the quiet countryside to the west of Darlington. The Cross Keys closed when the pandemic struck in 2020 and did not reopen until October 2022, when it gained a redecoration making it fashionably grey inside – even a tartan grey carpet. We visited on Fathers’ Day, and learned that the starter specials included harissa minestrone soup and a haddock and mussels broth, even though the regular menu had five interesting-looking starters, including an Indian spiced Scotch egg.
Smoked mackerel pate Between four of us, we shared two dishes. The warm salad of.
