The story
Pignut & the Hare is a Modern British restaurant at the Hare Inn, Scawton, North Yorkshire, YO7 2HG, in the Thirsk area. The AA awarded it Three Rosettes for culinary excellence in 2026, and the evening is built around a tasting menu rather than a fixed à la carte list.
Tom Heywood cooks the menu, and he and Laurissa Heywood ran Pignut in Helmsley before taking on this inn. Each course names its main ingredient and where it comes from, while the garnishes are explained when the dish arrives. The kitchen works with local farmers and suppliers, and the wine pairings lean on natural and biodynamic bottles.
The meal opens with "Wastage" canapés made from kitchen trimmings, including a ricotta-filled cracker made with leftover bread and whey. Trout tartare with fig-leaf emulsion and fennel is a clean, bright course, and pork belly from the Konro grill arrives with a barbecue sauce infused with sweet cicely. Dessert might be ice cream made with a penny bun and lion's mane mushroom, followed by "Nan's cake tin" of mini butterfly buns.
Four newly renovated rooms sit in the 12th-century building, with original exposed beams, walk-in showers and standing baths. Guests are served a multi-course breakfast built on locally sourced ingredients. Laurissa Heywood leads the front of house team, whose manner is warm and informal.
Recognition
Details
History
Deep in a wooded valley, five miles from Helmsley, Scawton is a remote hamlet with a scattering of houses, a 12th-century church and this welcoming mellow-stone inn. It was once a neglected village boozer before former owners Paul and Liz Jackson reinvented it as a tasting-menu-only restaurant with four bedrooms. Now Tom and Laurissa Heywood have taken over – an obvious fit, since they had been running Pignut in Helmsley, serving a multi-course menu similar in style to the Hare. After a gentle upgrade to create a calm, contemporary space in muted, neutral shades, Pignut has been reborn. The two-tier tasting menu (half £65, full £110), with organic and biodynamic wine pairings, begins with 'Wastage' – trimmings and ‘waste’ from other dishes that chef Tom Heywood transforms into a trio of exquisite canapés: a teeny ricotta-filled cracker made from leftover bread and whey; tiny tarts of smoked hake; and a choux bun infused with spent coffee grounds, black pudding purée and rhubarb vinegar. From here, the full menu takes diners through a dozen or more flawless small courses, notably a delicate trout tartare with a fig-leaf emulsion, fennel vinegar and fennel fronds. A standout dish is the skewered cube of tender, sticky, pork belly from the Konro grill, given a glossy BBQ sauce infused with sweet cicely. Alongside is a soothing dish of brown butter hollandaise, in which a dark, marinated and glazed lion’s mane mushroom lurks. Then it’s on to lamb, mussels, hake, and finally venison, An outstanding ice cream made with a penny bun and more lion's mane fungi, topped with a mushroom and coffee crumb and a fabulous caramel sauce, was the pick of the two desserts, with the finale being 'Nan’s cake tin' – a retro tin filled with mini butterfly buns in a light-hearted reference to Tom Heywood’s childhood. The full menu is a three-and-a-half-hour tour de force , a culinary adventure that embraces Pignut’s ethos of local, seasonal and sustainable produce. The front of house team, led by Laurissa Heywood, know their stuff and generate a warmth and informality that's sometimes absent from high-end dining. In this remote corner of North Yorkshire, the Heywoods appear to have found the perfect home for Tom's considerable talent. His Nan would be proud.
3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
Location
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