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The Business Bite: Forge at Middleton Lodge

Food and drink recommendations for everything from client entertaining and post-pay day blowouts, to budget eats and trendy spots

Forge at Middleton Lodge 

Innovative, estate-inspired tasting menus with informal, passionate service in an atmosphere of understated luxury

What makes it unique? Forge is set in the 200-acre landscape of Middleton Lodge, and the team carry the flavours of the estate into the menu right through the year. It holds both a Michelin and Green Michelin star.

Blow the budget or budget eat? A six-course tasting menu is £65, ten courses for £110 and a matching wine flight comes in at £85. Best value in our book is the Evening Spa and Forge dining experience, where you get two hours to enjoy the thermal spa with heated outdoor pool, sauna, steam room, plunge pool and relaxation areas, before sitting down to the six-course tasting menu at Forge. 

Stand out dish: Dry aged Niderdale hogget was the stand out dish on our visit, served with a summer 24 mint pickle, turnip and pickled mustard seeds. The seared fat paired with the acidic pickles made for a magnificent mouthful. 

Service: Another highlight of a trip to Forge is the informed but informal service. Each dish is presented and explained by a different team member - including the full kitchen team. Timing this must be a mission behind the scenes, but it adds a warmth and authenticity to the whole experience.

Sommelier on hand? Yes. On our visit, the sommelier was friendly but highly knowledgeable, with a desire to take you out of any old-world comfort zone you might be in. Our flight took a tour of the UK, incorporated a zingy orange from Portugal and rounded off with an Alsace dessert wine. 

Fine-dining devotees should add Forge to the top of their must-visit list. The setting, the menu and the entire feel of the estate oozes understated luxury.

There’s nothing ostentatious or pretentious here. Every dish is innovative in its concept but retains an air of genuine passion for the produce.

Head chef Jake Jones curates a menu that is inspired by the estate, its two-acre kitchen garden and the surrounding Yorkshire landscape.

Our experience was nothing short of wonderful. From the first taste (in essence the finest rösti you ever did see) – a potato cake of sorts with fermented nasturtium and barbecued kale – we could sense we were in for a treat.

The delicacies kept coming, with an English mushroom biscuit with mascarpone and summer truffle served alongside a Scottish crab tartlet that had our mouths watering.

Dishes swap in and out with the seasons, so expect your experience to differ from ours in new and exciting ways. That said, the bread course is a constant. And for good reason.

A hot boule of homemade bread was made using thyme from the Forge estate and served with seasonal butters and a goblet of their own beer from SALT Beer Factory, in Leeds. Forget a dense roll with bullet-hard butter, this is how bread should be served. 

The walled garden blackcurrant doughnut deserves a column of its very own.

It's safe to say, we left Forge and the Middleton Estate with smiles on our faces, and a sense we'd just experienced something very special indeed.

If you haven't been yet, go soon, before that second shiny star arrives next February and you can't get in the door. 

Middleton Lodge Estate, Kneeton Lane, Middleton Tyas, DL10 6NJ. To book, visit middletonlodge.co.uk, call 01325 377977 or email forge@middletonlodge.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Business Bite .