The Michelin-starred restaurant that’s accidentally one of Britain’s best B&Bs
I have varying levels of lottery-win fantasy. At the top end, I’d have a housekeeper who changes my luxurious bed linen every day. Imagine having that fresh, crisp, tightly tucked sensation every time you turn in for the evening. It was precisely what I experienced when I stayed at Mýse in Yorkshire recently, as the first person to stay in one of its three new cottage rooms.
That virgin high-thread-count cotton, along with the smell of the just-laid woven jute floor coverings, and the meticulous white-and-grey bathroom with a giant tub and onsen stool, fired up my dopamine. A huge mirror leaning against the bedroom wall and artfully hung dried flowers and bouquets of corn were stylish touches. The design is superb.
These new rooms are a couple of minutes’ walk from the main bar and restaurant and other rooms, across the town green. You can feel the wealth in this part of Yorkshire, and see it in the town’s immaculate gardens and perfectly preserved cottages. Once you’re inside Mýse – a former pub that’s now a Michelin-starred destination dining room – you’re transported somewhere Nordic. It has a pleasingly austere look with curved hand-carved wooden chairs. There are cool tones and candles in expensive-looking ceramics. Some aspects of Mýse are now clichés: menus tucked into wizened chunks of tree branches, and fleeces thrown over chairs. But that’s not to say they’re bad.
This is a place that has catalogued the codes of fine dining in northern Europe and mixed them up within a handsome, historic Yorkshire context. When you arrive for breakfast, your table has been laid with a banquet. There’s potted smoked trout, hen of the woods parfait, a bowl of strawberries, sourdough toast, granola, and a soft-boiled egg that turns up later in its own bird’s nest. This kind of start to the day would figure as a daily option in my top-level lottery fantasy.
As for dinner – which is why you’re coming here – there are hits and misses. Let’s start at the end. The desserts are fairly pedestrian. The sweet section opens with “candied oakchurch raspberry” – a single sugared berry. Meh. The slither of linseed caramel that follows is more interesting, with a dark and sweet flavour. A set buttermilk plate with strawberries has a nice enough texture but leaves no memorable taste. The finale of day-old bread with iced cider and meadowsweet ice cream involves some theatrics with fire and a small copper pan, which is fun. But it looks more interesting than it is. I felt more fondness towards the ham and apple slaw sandwich I was served on the train on the way up.
But now let me go back to the good stuff. There’s a lot that comes out of the kitchen that’s exceptional – starting with nibbles of delicate biscuits with pickled bilberry and some slices of smoked pork sausage served in the bar. For drinks, there are innovative cocktails, including a lush and dark brown butter fig leaf old fashioned, and a bright-tasting Mýse 75, featuring gin, Hambledon sparkling wine, lemon and honey.
The action moves into the main dining room after this, for a selection of more small bites – mini charcoal pies with roe deer and smoked caviar, and braised ox cheek in Yorkshire pudding batter. So far, so tasty. Then, BOOM, here comes the most amazing thing you may ever eat – a hand-dived scallop cooked in its own shell, in sea urchin butter. The smell is a mix of the sea and citrus. The taste is the same. Remarkable. It’s a huge beast of a scallop, but so soft.
Onward – a gorgeous little bowl of grilled peas, Scottish girolles and smoked eel; a big burst of flavour and texture. The monkfish course is small but wonderful, cooked over coals, with Isle of Wight tomatoes. Then a roast duck does a tour of the tables and comes back sliced up and served several ways across a couple of courses. It’s cleverly done and tastes good. But the scallop eclipses everything else.
Mýse is obviously the best thing around for miles, but it’s a special occasion spot. It’s pure tasting menu territory (I was impressed by an inventive non-alcoholic pairing as well as two levels of wine pairing). You couldn’t eat here every week. Well, maybe you could – maybe that’s your low-level lottery-win fantasy. All in all, this is a very good place for dinner indeed. But it’s also accidentally a truly great bed and breakfast. One of the best in the country, perhaps.
Doubles from £280pp, including the evening tasting menu and breakfast. There are no accessible rooms. Mark C O’Flaherty travelled as a guest of LNER, which offers returns from London King’s Cross to York from £54.
Mýse, Main Street, Hovingham, York YO62 4LF
