North Yorkshire, Sandwiches, Cakes, Etc Restaurant Guide

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.

“A Yorkshire institution” that’s “not to be missed!” – These famous tea rooms owe their existence to Swiss founder Frederick Belmont, who opened them in 1919 and his family now also operate at four other locations across North Yorkshire. “A great, old school and classic experience” – they are “everyone’s favourite” and afternoon tea is “a real occasion” that’s “well worth queuing for”. Top Menu Tips – “scrumptious fat rascals” (a kind of Yorkshire scone).

A popular little bistro around the corner from the Minster (with views from its garden at the back) that fans claim “would be worthy of awards if it had more than 8 tables and tablecloths”. In business since 2002, “if anything it improves”: last year, Ian Pragnell, son of co-founder and self-taught chef Chris, joined the team to add lunchtime openings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Top Menu Tip – “excellent goat’s cheese and tuna starters, lamb and pork main courses”.

The Mannion clan first opened this venue as a greengrocers’ three decades ago; its current incarnation is as a “charming café-deli that consistently delivers on quality, atmosphere and indulgence” (be it Full English breakfasts or pork belly sandwiches), and offers “very efficient and friendly” service to boot. There’s also a sibling in Helmsley (the Easingwold spin-off having closed in summer 2025).

“This iconic tea room is in a league of its own” and “almost as charming as the Harrogate original” (it was built later, in 1936, with its interior modelled on the Queen Mary). It can be “a pity that it is overwhelmed by tourists with the resultant queues” but this is a trivial quibble – for practically all reporters it’s an “old favourite that never fails” and “it’s rare to be disappointed here”. Cosset yourself with afternoon tea, sandwiches, scones and patisseries galore, or there’s always the opportunity to eat here all day from the ‘Grande Breakfast’ onwards. “Always go there when in York and always delighted!”

2023 Review: “Afternoon tea IS Bettys!". This old-fashioned tearoom is “always worth the queue” for its epic teas and fine spreads of pastries and sarnies. It’s also “a great place to meet over a very good breakfast. Coffee, understandably, is excellent!”