But the TripAdvisor awards, which started in 2012, have some claim to importance. Rather than being picked by a panel of insiders or experts, the restaurants on the list are based on an algorithm that takes into account the quantity and quality of millions of reviews around the world over a 12-month period. Another U.K. restaurant, Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, places second, and third is Maison Lameloise, in Chagny, France.
So how does the Black Swan measure up? It is actually very good.
The only option is a tasting menu for £95 ($126) that focuses on local produce, much of it from the countryside around the pub and some of it from the garden at the back. Banks’ parents, who are farmers, bought the North Yorkshire pub and converted it into a restaurant. Tommy Banks is head chef, while his brother James runs the front of house. The family has farmed around Oldstead for generations. The main dining room is a small upstairs space above the bar, with bare tables and a low ceiling supported by beams where you might bang your head.
When I visited on Saturday, the meal started with snacks of langoustine on a spruce skewer, with caramelized whey and fermented strawberry; a dumpling of confit chicken legs wrapped in brioche; and raw Dexter beef fed on beer, with grated chestnuts and smoked bone marrow.
The first of the four mains was cod topped with grated roasted cauliflower, served on a parsley sauce, with just the right mixture of softness and crunch. Then there was a beautiful dish of Crapaudine beetroot slowly cooked in beef fat, topped with pickled beetroot, smoked roe, goat’s curd and linseed. I personally dislike beetroot, but this had an almost toffee-like sweetness and texture, the elements perfectly balanced.
A large scallop steamed in apple juice was sliced and served with fermented celeriac and a sauce with dill oil. James Banks, serving my table, told me the name of the farmer who had shot my fallow-deer venison, served rare with a black garlic glaze, accompanied by a taco-like brussels sprout leaf with slow-cooked shoulder, fermented turnip and blobs of sloe puree.
(I have to watch my sugar intake these days, otherwise I would tell you about desserts such as brown butter and rhubarb; and cake made from chicory root and blackcurrant. I enjoyed a beautiful blackened apple tart with caramelized cream with walnuts.)
While these were classic combinations, the quality of the ingredients, the originality of the presentation and the assuredness of the cooking lifted them above the everyday. OK, it’s not the kind of creative contemporary gastronomy on show at World’s 50 Best Restaurants. I well remember my final meal at five-time winner El Bulli that consisted of 48 courses, few of which I could identify. (A crimson liquid described as hare’s blood was particularly disconcerting. It turned out to be beetroot juice, which was actually worse.)
And what did the TripAdvisor users think of the Black Swan? “Absolutely stunning meal last night, service and food were faultless,” one said. All the dishes “were out of this world,” said another. “Probably the best meal I’ve ever had,” said a third. And: “Who would have thought that peas could taste like heaven?”
But you can’t please everyone, at least not on TripAdvisor. One reviewer recently complained that the dining party was “sat on our own absolutely no atmosphere” and “bread was under cooked I could have rolled the inside dough into balls.” (I thought the bread was sensational.)