The story
The Black Swan at Oldstead serves a modern British tasting menu at Oldstead, North Yorkshire YO61 4BL, near Thirsk. It holds one Michelin star (2026).
Tommy Banks is the chef-patron, and Alice Power runs the kitchen. The team works two acres of growing beds beside the restaurant and forages in the countryside around Oldstead. The menu is tasting-only, around a dozen courses, and it leans on pickled and preserved ingredients in the leaner months, especially early in the year.
Early courses include smoked eel with oscietra caviar and fennel pollen, and scallop with leek and spruce. Locally shot partridge appears over several stages, first as a broth, then as heart and liver with chestnuts, and finally as roasted breast with Pablo beetroot and bread sauce. Dessert can end with yoghurt ice cream, wood sorrel and Douglas fir oil, poured at the table.
The building is a former stone inn, now fitted with spare modern furniture and bare tables under heavy beams. The Black Swan also has nine rooms. The bar pours cocktails such as a lemon verbena Tom Collins, along with soft drinks made from garden produce like rhubarb and lemon verbena tonic. Wine flights come at three levels, from experimental to rare and exceptional.
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High quality cooking
A shining beacon on the edge of the romantically desolate North York Moors, the Black Swan is a stone-built inn, now more obviously a regional restaurant with rooms. Inside, it has been daringly reconfigured for its contemporary purpose, with spare modern furniture and unclothed tables against a backdrop of thick stone and heavy beams. Former civil servant Alice Power is the latest incumbent in the Swan's kitchen, disposing over two acres of kitchen garden, overseeing a tireless foraging operation, and maintaining the format of a lengthy taster of around a dozen stages – a menu structure that crucially depends on robust endurance. That said, there is no sense of overload about these dishes, largely because they don't go heavy on carbs. First nibbles evoke excited first impressions, from smoked eel and oscietra caviar with fennel pollen to a bite-sized chunk of truffled roe deer with celeriac. Foraged ingredients provide the haunting aromatics in dishes ranging from scallop and leek with spruce to lobster with salt-cured rhubarb and lemon verbena. A thrifty approach to meats might find locally shot partridge served first in a broth, followed by its heart and liver with chestnuts, a leg with elderberry and fir, and finally the roasted breast with Pablo beetroot and bread sauce. An innovative approach to desserts ensures that the latter stages of the production are among the most memorable: mushroom-dusted chocolate ganache with meringue and chocolate/honey pieces, as well as yoghurt ice cream with wood sorrel and Douglas fir oil applied at the table. The rather over-rehearsed mood of service – often a feature of the tasting format – would benefit from relaxing a little. Three levels of wine flight are offered to accompany the cavalcade of flavours, ranging from ‘experimental and adventurous’, through ‘grand and classic’ to ‘rare and exceptional’, depending on depth of pocket. The first might embrace a Naoussa Xinomavro with that partridge, the second a 2009 Beaune premier cru ‘Les Epenottes’, the last Calera's 2008 Pinot Noir from Sonoma, California.
4 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
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