Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Knaresborough
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Knaresborough restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 56 restaurants in Knaresborough and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Knaresborough restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Knaresborough Restaurants
1. The Alice Hawthorn
British, Modern restaurant in Nun Monkton
The Green - YO26
This multi-tasking country inn “ticks all the boxes”: award-winning bedrooms, a pretty setting on the village green, and a “really well thought-out menu” now including summer pizzas al fresco (extra points for hosting the country’s tallest maypole). “All too rare these days, it works equally well as a village pub and as a very good restaurant”, and service is highly “personable” too – particularly if you get “a personal welcome and tour round on arrival from Claire Topham”, who made the name of the General Tartleton at Ferrensby alongside husband John, before the duo launched this venue.
2. Sukhothai
Thai restaurant in Leeds
15 South Parade - LS1
“Consistently good food and service” again wins praise for this city-centre branch of Ban Kaewkraikhot’s small Yorkshire chain of glam-looking Thai eateries (although the odd reporter finds its approach “formulaic”). The business started in Chapel Allerton, but this is now the flagship, boasting a 200+ dish à la carte menu.
3. The Old Deanery
British, Modern restaurant in Ripon
Minster Rd - HG4
Yorkshire reporters are very enthusiastic about the late 2023 reformatting of this property owned by Layton Hill Hotels, now pitching itself more as a ‘restaurant with rooms’, with chef Adam Jackson – formerly at the Black Swan in Oldstead – at the stoves. Nearly all accounts on its tasting menu are of “incredible cooking”: “we first sampled Adam’s food when in Oldstead, and this was our first visit here with food just as good as we have come to expect from chef Jackson, with a well-matched wine flight. Service was attentive, and the pacing of the tasting menu was just right. The building is lovely too with superb views over the garden”.
4. The Tannin Level
British, Traditional restaurant in Harrogate
5 Raglan St - HG1
“Very enjoyable tasty food and friendly service” underpin a formula that’s won enduring success for this stalwart cellar in the lower ground floor of a solid Victorian mansion which celebrates its 40th year in 2025. The traditional-ish cuisine aims for ‘Yorkshire on a plate’ and the sensibly priced and focused menu covers all bases, including a selection of steaks.
5. Sukhothai
Thai restaurant in Harrogate
17-19 Cheltenham Pde - HG1
“Consistent food and service” continues to win praise (although feedback was relatively limited this year) for this well-established “large and buzzy” Thai venue from owner Ban Kaewkraikhot (who ran a successful restaurant in Bangkok for eight years before relocating to the UK, and now owns three restaurants in Yorkshire).
6. The Lime Tree Inn
restaurant in Great Ouseburn
Branton Lane - YO26
A brand new country Inn, opened its doors for the first time in September 2020.The Lime Tree Inn is a family run country Inn made of seriously good food in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.Our menu is seasonal with everything made in house from quali...
7. Fleur Restaurant and bar
restaurant in Leeds city centre
Inside the lights - LS1
Award-winning Master Chef Finalist, Great British Menu-famed chef Bobby Geetha and Team provides a stunning contemporary British cuisine inspired by world flavours.Fléur Restaurant was the finalist for best Brunch in Leeds. Reviewed as Top 3 best Bottomless...
8. Aagrah
Indian restaurant in Leeds
St Peter’s Sq - LS9
“They always go the extra mile” according to fans of this city-centre outpost of Yorkshire’s nine-strong chain of well-regarded curry houses – a family-run business established in 1977.
9. Sukhothai
Thai restaurant in Leeds
8 Regent St - LS7
2022 Review: Feedback remains limited but remains very positive for this Chapel Allerton Thai (part of a local group), which hits twenty years old in 2022.
10. Tattu
Chinese restaurant in Leeds
29 East Parade, Minerva House - LS1
This branch of a glitzy Manchester-based group closed down for several weeks last summer for an overhaul of its decor to combat too much copycatting by rivals of its super-successful Insta-friendly looks. It looks like it worked: the “lovely ambience” was singled out for praise in our survey this year – and the mashup of Chinese and Japanese cuisines earned consistently good ratings (if with the occasional accusation of “style over substance”).
12. Clocktower Restaurant, Rudding Park Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Harrogate
Rudding Pk, Follifoot - HG3
Attached to a luxurious spa hotel, this modern brasserie is open all day (with other options in the hotel being the more ambitious Horto, or afternoon tea in the Conservatory). One fan notes it as a good place for a relaxed business meal, but there is also the odd concern that its “good ambience can be let down by average results at excessive prices”.
13. Horto Restaurant at Rudding Park
British, Modern restaurant in Follifoot
2022 Review: This “lovely hotel” is so proud of its own produce that it named its main restaurant Horto, Latin for kitchen garden, and charged young head chef Callum Bowmer (who arrived for two weeks’ work experience in 2010 and never left) with the task of creating showcase menus from it. The resulting meals are “really enjoyable”.
14. Graveley’s Fish & Chip Restaurant
Fish & chips restaurant in Harrogate
8-12 Cheltenham Parade - HG1
2021 Review: “A very traditional Yorkshire chippie” which doesn’t offer anything fancy but “just good fish ’n’ chips” (the former “huge and well-battered”, and “you can go for more exotic if you wish”); “a little tip – avoid early evening when the ‘pensioners’ special menu’ is served – it will be heaving!”
15. Baltzersens
Scandinavian restaurant in Harrogate
2023 Review: This “quirky café with wonderful cinnamon buns and waffles” offers a “real taste of Scandinavia in Harrogate”. It’s “very popular with yummy-mummies in the morning so can get a little loud, but you can buy all the baked goods from their shop just by the theatre”. Owner Paul Rawlinson’s Scandi restaurant Norse is still missed, five years after its closure.
16. Sasso
Italian restaurant in Harrogate
8-10 Princes Square - HG1
“A local establishment offering consistent Italian dining” – this family-owned fixture has survived the passing of chef-patron Stefano Lancelloti, who died suddenly in 2023, shortly after celebrating the 25th anniversary of the restaurant he named after his hometown in Emilia Romagna. His son Nico is now part of the kitchen team looking after his legacy. Top Tip – “great for celebrations”.
17. Brio
restaurant in Harrogate
40 Kings Rd - HG1
“A real Harrogate stalwart, with excellent Italian cooking” – this town-centre venture has won a decent local reputation over four decades – “kids are kept happy with pizzas and home-made ice-cream”, while the menu covers the classics from stuzzichini and antipasti to pasta and secondi piatti, and there’s a “mainly Italian” wine list that explores the regions.
18. Bettys
Afternoon tea restaurant in Harrogate
1 Parliament Street - HG1
“You can’t go to Harrogate without a visit to this Mecca of traditional afternoon tea” – a “quintessentially English experience that is not to be missed”. The flagship of a family-owned business launched in 1919 and now with four other branches across North Yorkshire, it also serves breakfast and lunch which nod to founder Frederick Belmont’s Swiss origins with a menu including bircher muesli, Alpine macaroni and potato rösti – but it is the “heritage and great bakery” which pull in the crowds. Top Menu Tip – “great fat rascals and Yorkshire curd tarts”.
19. The Ivy Harrogate
British, Modern restaurant in Harrogate
7-9 Parliament Street - HG1
2021 Review: A “bustling” ambiance that “gives a lift to the spirits” is the chief plus-point of this brasserie offshoot of the ever-expanding London luminary. Even fans concede it’s “expensive for what it is”, and “could be said to be a little formulaic”, while a couple of other reporters noted meals that were positively bad.
20. Royal Baths
Chinese restaurant in Harrogate
Central Hall, Crescent Rd - HG1
The owners of this Cantonese spent an eye-watering £1.5m on its conversion and, while “the food is almost incidental to the splendour of the surroundings” (a “Victorian spa – full of wonderful tiling and soaring arches”), nevertheless “it’s not bad”, being “a notch above standard Chinese fare”, with the added joy that “they have a number of large round tables, so all the diners can enjoy the fun of working the lazy Susan”.
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