{"id":3664,"date":"2021-02-02T11:56:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T11:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2021-03-18T11:23:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T11:23:59","slug":"special-treats-the-black-swan-at-oldstead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/special-treats-the-black-swan-at-oldstead\/","title":{"rendered":"Special treats: The Black Swan at Oldstead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Everyone needs food to survive, but some of us are fortunate enough to be able to appreciate it not just as a necessity of life but also one of its pleasures. And when food becomes not only delicious to eat but also beautiful to look at, it is truly a special treat.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the inaugural Friendly Friday of 2021, Special Treats<\/a>, I present what is almost certainly, to date, the most \u2018special treat\u2019 meal I have enjoyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Swan at Oldstead<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I became aware of chef Tommy Banks and his Michelin-starred pub restaurant in Yorkshire through the TV programme The Great British Menu. I was impressed by his ethos of \u2018field to fork\u2019. He uses fresh seasonal ingredients, produced locally (most on his parents\u2019 nearby farm or in the pub\u2019s own extensive kitchen garden) or foraged for in the hedgerows and woodland around Oldstead, and presented with creativity but without forgetting that taste is foremost. Banks was Britain\u2019s youngest Michelin-starred chef in 2013 and won The Great British Menu in 2016 and 2017, and more recently he has been a judge on the programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having been so impressed I looked up the Black Swan<\/a> and realised that it was not too far from the route we take regularly between London and Newcastle, and back again; also that although a stay here would be a splurge, it was not an unaffordable one. As I was closing my small business in 2019 to go into \u2018almost\u2019 retirement, I decided this would be the perfect treat with which to mark that closure and blow some of the profits!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oldstead is little more than a hamlet \u2013 just a cluster of cottages reached along a single-track road from Byland Abbey. We arrived towards the end of the afternoon, parked behind the pub and went to check in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Limestone
The pub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are no bedrooms in the pub itself. Some are in a block behind and the remainder in cottages just a few metres away in the village. We were in one of the latter, so we grabbed our overnight bags and followed the friendly receptionist to our \u2018home\u2019 for the night. Although not large the room was stylish and welcoming; and we had a sizeable bathroom with rain shower and huge copper bathtub!<\/p>\n\n\n