Northumberland, Sandwiches, Cakes, Etc Restaurant Guide

“Exceptional” ‘new Scandi’-style cooking has won widespread acclaim for Swedish chef Alex Nietosvuori and his locally born partner Ally Thompson at their five-year-old restaurant-with rooms – a 24-seat dining room with open kitchen, “in a beautiful setting in the wilds of Northumberland”, close to Hadrian’s Wall. “The food is created with passion, delivered to the table with unbridled enthusiasm and reveals combinations, textures and flavours which are a sensory revelation”. The couple’s spectacular new purpose-built venue, Frejya, in a walled garden within the Close House estate at Heddon-on-the-Wall, is scheduled to open in late 2025.

2021 Review: Fans of this puntastic pizzeria may be going OTT when they hail it as “probably the best pizza in the UK”. But Jesmond-born former joiner Calvin Kitchin and his brother Kerry take their trade seriously – their “good-value pizzas” are accredited by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana and cooked in a wood-fired Stefano Ferrara oven imported from Naples.