Which luxury restaurants and tea rooms are open on Valentine's Day 2027?

Valentine's Day 2027 is Sunday 14 February. On their published regular schedules, Gilpin Lake House (tea daily, 1pm to 3:30pm), The Grand in York (tea daily, 12:30pm to 4pm), The Municipal in Liverpool (tea daily, 12pm to 5pm), The Midland in Manchester (tea Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 4:30pm), Northcote (Sunday lunch, 12pm to 2:30pm) and The Angel at Hetton (Sunday lunch, 12pm to 1:30pm) all serve on a Sunday. None had published a Valentine's 2027 menu when we checked in October 2026, and hotels do sometimes swap in a special menu, price or booking terms for the day itself. The Angel's own terms, for example, list Valentine's among its special occasions with bespoke menus and non-refundable bookings, so confirm the details with the venue when you book.

How much does a Valentine's lunch or afternoon tea for two cost in the North?

On the prices these venues publish for autumn 2026, afternoon tea for two starts at £70 at Gilpin Lake House, then £76 at The Midland, £85 at The Grand and £98 at The Municipal, and £96 to £120 if you add champagne (Gilpin, The Grand, The Municipal, or The Midland's Royal and Excellence teas). Sunday lunch for two is from £111 at Northcote (three courses at £55.50 each) and £170 at The Angel at Hetton (£85 each). That is before drinks, and service charges of 12.5% to 15% at The Grand, The Municipal and Northcote (with a £2 cover charge per guest at Northcote). Seasonal menus change, so check the price for February before you book.

Do you need to book a Sunday lunch or afternoon tea in advance?

Yes. The Angel at Hetton's Sunday lunch is pre-order only, with last orders on the Thursday before, and it asks for 48 hours' notice of dietary needs. The Grand holds card details and charges £20 per person for a cancellation inside 24 hours or a no-show, and asks you to pre-order any vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free tea when booking. Gilpin asks for dietary needs when you book or at least 24 hours ahead, and The Midland takes card details to secure a table and recommends booking ahead for weekends and special occasions. The Municipal and Northcote don't publish notice or deposit rules on the pages we checked, so ask when you book.

Should we choose afternoon tea or a Sunday lunch for Valentine's?

Afternoon tea is the lighter, cheaper option: £70 to £98 for two at these venues, in a lake-view house, a former railway headquarters or a marble-columned civic palace. Sunday lunch is a longer sit-down meal: Northcote's three-course lunch starts at £111 for two and The Angel's is a fixed £170 for two with a côte de boeuf to share. If you want the Michelin-starred cooking, choose the lunch; if you want the setting and champagne in the afternoon, choose the tea.

Seasonal · Across the North

Luxury Valentine's lunch and afternoon tea for two in the North

Valentine's Day 2027, 14 February, falls on a Sunday, which is good news for a lunch or afternoon tea: the six places here, from a Windermere lake house to a Michelin-starred Sunday lunch in the Ribble Valley, all publish regular Sunday service. They are chosen for exactly that, because plenty of the North's best restaurants and tea rooms are shut on a Sunday.

At a glance

Venue	Area	The menu and price for two	Served on Sundays	Booking
Gilpin Hotel & Lake House	Lake District, near Windermere	Traditional afternoon tea £35 per person (£70 for two); with champagne £51 per person (£102 for two)	Yes, daily 1pm to 3:30pm	Book online; non-residents welcome; dietary needs on booking or 24 hours ahead
The Angel at Hetton	Yorkshire Dales, near Skipton	Fixed Sunday lunch £85 per person (£170 for two), with a côte de boeuf to share (sample menu)	Yes, Sunday lunch 12pm to 1:30pm; closed Monday and Thursday lunchtimes and all day Tuesday and Wednesday	Pre-order only, last orders Thursday for that week; dietary needs 48 hours ahead
The Grand, York	York	Autumn afternoon tea £42.50 per person (£85 for two); with champagne £55.50 per person (£111 for two). The menu changes each season	Yes, tea 12:30pm to 4pm daily; Sunday slots bookable on its OpenTable listing	Card details held, nothing charged upfront; £20 per person if cancelled inside 24 hours; 15% discretionary service charge
Northcote	Ribble Valley, Lancashire	Sunday lunch three courses from £55.50 per person (£111 for two), four courses from £65.50, Indulgence menu £98	Yes, Sundays 12pm to 2:30pm	Book online by experience (1 to 6 diners); notice and cancellation terms not published on the restaurant page
The Midland Hotel	Manchester city centre	Traditional tea £38 per person (£76 for two); Royal with Pommery £48 (£96 for two); Excellence £60 (£120 for two)	Yes, Wednesday to Sunday 12pm to 4:30pm (closed Monday and Tuesday)	Card details taken to secure the table; booking ahead recommended for weekends and special occasions
The Municipal Hotel & Spa Liverpool	Liverpool city centre	Afternoon tea £49 per person (£98 for two); with champagne £59 per person (£118 for two)	Yes, daily 12pm to 5pm, last sitting 4pm	Book online; notice and deposit terms not published on the tearoom page; optional 12.5% service charge

Prices and availability change — check with the venue before booking.

Gilpin Hotel & Lake House

££££

Lake District

Good gift experience

A family-run, five-red-star hotel near Windermere with a Michelin-starred restaurant and private Spa Suites with their own sauna and jacuzzi.

For this guide: Gilpin's own entry above covers the hotel and spa. The tea in this guide is served separately at Gilpin Lake House, looking over its private lake, Knipe Tarn, daily from 1pm to 3:30pm: £35 per person for the traditional tea or £51 with champagne. You don't need to be staying, and the hotel asks for any dietary needs when you book, or at least 24 hours ahead.

The consensus

Gilpin Hotel & Lake House is a family-run, AA Five Red Star, Relais & Châteaux property near Windermere, holding Two MICHELIN Keys and home to the Michelin-starred SOURCE restaurant alongside the more casual Gilpin Spice. Its private Spa Suites and Spa Lodges each come with their own sauna, jacuzzi and steam room, and the Jetty Spa Experience package pairs a treatment with private pool use; classic bedrooms start from around £295 a night in summer, with Spa Suites from around £890. TripAdvisor rates it 4.7 out of 5 across close to 2,500 reviews, and the independent Good Hotel Guide covers it favourably too — the overwhelming majority of feedback is glowing on welcome, staff and setting. It isn't flawless, though: a small number of more recent reviews describe an unwelcoming check-in experience, and a few guests have raised maintenance niggles or questioned value for money against the price, worth weighing against the otherwise strong consensus.

Sourced from TripAdvisor, Good Hotel Guide — how we rate venues

Check price at Gilpin Hotel & Lake House

Last verified 20 August 2026

The Angel at Hetton

££££

Yorkshire Dales

Good gift experience

Michael Wignall's Michelin-starred restaurant in a 15th-century Yorkshire Dales inn, with three distinct lunch tasting menus that are genuinely separate from its evening service.

For this guide: The Angel's entry above covers its tasting-menu lunches. The one that matters here is its separate Sunday lunch: a fixed menu at £85 per person (sample menu: Hokkaido milk bread with Colonnata lardo, chalk stream trout, a 50-day aged côte de boeuf to share with all the trimmings, and a custard tart). It is served 12 to 1:30pm, by pre-order only, with last orders on the Thursday before.

The consensus

Michael Wignall took over this 15th-century Yorkshire Dales inn — reputedly Britain's oldest gastropub — in 2018 and won a Michelin star within his first year, retaining it every year since, including the 2026 guide, alongside four AA Rosettes. The kitchen's sauce work and a cheese board one detailed review called "the best I have experienced" draw repeat visits, and daytime dining is built as three genuinely distinct menus rather than a cut-down dinner: a five-course tasting lunch, a rotating "Taste of the Season" lunch (lunch-only, must be booked in advance), and a separate Sunday lunch — real separation from the evening's ten-course tasting menu, not just a shorter version of it. At least one thorough review found a tasting-menu course "lacked any wow factor" and was caught out by a £35 optional wagyu supplement, worth knowing before you book.

Sourced from Great British Chefs, Savour Magazine

Check price at The Angel at Hetton

Last verified 8 September 2026

The Grand, York

£££

Harrogate & North Yorkshire

Good gift experience

York's grandest afternoon tea, served in a former "Palace of Business" built for the North Eastern Railway in 1906.

The consensus

The Grand occupies the North Eastern Railway's 1906 Edwardian Baroque headquarters — a Grade II listed "Palace of Business" in red brick and Portland stone, converted into York's only five-star hotel in 2010, with oak panelling and decorative plasterwork intact throughout. Afternoon tea is served at The Rise, its restaurant overlooking York's city walls, and won 'Best Afternoon Tea' at the 2026 Condé Nast Johansens Awards for Excellence. Prices change with the season: its autumn menu (7 September to 11 November 2026) is £42.50 per person, £52.50 with Prosecco or £55.50 with Champagne, plus a 15% discretionary service charge, up from £39.50 earlier in the year. Independent reviews skew strongly positive on the food itself — particularly the scones and patisserie — but aren't unanimous on the setting: at least one visitor felt The Rise, a working all-day restaurant, doesn't suit afternoon tea as well as a dedicated lounge would, and reported service on the day lacking the polish the room's grandeur promises.

Sourced from TripAdvisor, Yorkshire Post

Check price at The Grand, York

Last verified 13 October 2026

Northcote

££££

Lancashire

Good gift experience

A Ribble Valley restaurant with rooms that has held a Michelin star since 1996, with a glass-walled Chef's Table looking straight into the kitchen.

For this guide: Northcote's entry above covers its Chef's Table and gourmet tasting menus. Its Sunday lunch is a separate, cheaper format: three courses from £55.50 or four from £65.50 (tea or coffee included), or a four-course Indulgence menu at £98, served on Sundays from 12 to 2:30pm. Some dishes carry a supplement, and a 12.5% optional service charge and £2 cover charge per guest are added to the bill (autumn 2026 menu).

The consensus

Northcote has held its Michelin star continuously since 1996, one of the longest unbroken runs outside London, alongside four AA Rosettes, and remains a fixture of Harden's top-40 most-commented restaurants in the country. Executive chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen leads a kitchen built on Lancashire produce with modern technique, and the restaurant's genuine chef's-table format — a separate room with glass doors opening onto the working kitchen, seating up to 14, with direct access to the chefs during service — sets it apart from restaurants that just call a good table near the pass a "chef's table." Tasting menus run from around £120 to £145 depending on length, alongside seasonal, Sunday and gourmet menus available at the Chef's Table itself. Sommelier Craig Bancroft's wine list is consistently singled out as being as much a part of the experience as the food. Reviews are near-uniformly excellent, though a handful of recent ones note staff visibly under pressure on busy sittings and prices that sit firmly at the top of the regional market.

Sourced from Hardens, Visit Lancashire

Check price at Northcote

Last verified 31 August 2026

The Midland Hotel

£££

Cheshire & Manchester

Good gift experience

Manchester's original grand hotel afternoon tea, served in a dedicated Tea Room overlooking St Peter's Square since 1903.

The consensus

The Midland has served afternoon tea since the hotel opened in 1903, and since 2017 has done so in a purpose-built Tea Room overlooking St Peter's Square — by its own account the longest-running afternoon tea menu in Manchester's history, getting through around 800 pots of tea and 600 scones a week. Traditional Afternoon Tea is £38 per person, rising to £48 for the Royal option with champagne or £60 for the Excellence tea, served Wednesday to Sunday from noon to 4.30pm (the hotel's own prices, October 2026). Independent reviews are more divided than the hotel's heritage framing suggests: many guests call it one of the classier settings in the city, praising the loose-leaf tea selection, presentation and the paneled, window-lit room itself, but a meaningful minority of reviews describe service as inconsistent and the sandwiches as underwhelming for the price on an off day — a real gap between the grand setting and what turns up on the stand, worth knowing before booking a special occasion here.

Sourced from TripAdvisor, Secret Manchester

Check price at The Midland Hotel

Last verified 12 October 2026

The Municipal Hotel & Spa Liverpool

££££

Liverpool & Merseyside

Good gift experience

Liverpool's only five-star hotel, built inside the city's former Victorian civic headquarters, pours afternoon tea beneath the Botanic Tearoom's glass and marble.

The consensus

The Municipal Buildings served as Liverpool City Council's headquarters from 1868 until 2017 — a quadrangular Victorian pile in the Italianate Renaissance style, its Dale Street frontage running over 200 feet — before a two-year, roughly £45 million heritage restoration turned it into the city's only five-star hotel, opening as The Municipal Hotel & Spa, MGallery in 2023. The conversion kept the grandeur: marble columns and staircases throughout, and a Palm Court bar with a glass-vaulted ceiling and a marble bar at its centre. Its Botanic Tearoom serves a three-course afternoon tea of scones, finger sandwiches, hot items and patisserie in a plant-filled, atrium-style room, from £49 per person or £59 with Champagne. It's rated 4.8 out of 5 on TripAdvisor from several hundred reviews, with consistent praise for presentation and staff — though, as with any tea at this price, a handful of guests feel the bill doesn't always quite match the experience.

Sourced from TripAdvisor, Luxurious Magazine

Check price at The Municipal Hotel & Spa Liverpool

Last verified 31 August 2026

Questions people ask

Which luxury restaurants and tea rooms are open on Valentine's Day 2027?: Valentine's Day 2027 is Sunday 14 February. On their published regular schedules, Gilpin Lake House (tea daily, 1pm to 3:30pm), The Grand in York (tea daily, 12:30pm to 4pm), The Municipal in Liverpool (tea daily, 12pm to 5pm), The Midland in Manchester (tea Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 4:30pm), Northcote (Sunday lunch, 12pm to 2:30pm) and The Angel at Hetton (Sunday lunch, 12pm to 1:30pm) all serve on a Sunday. None had published a Valentine's 2027 menu when we checked in October 2026, and hotels do sometimes swap in a special menu, price or booking terms for the day itself. The Angel's own terms, for example, list Valentine's among its special occasions with bespoke menus and non-refundable bookings, so confirm the details with the venue when you book.
How much does a Valentine's lunch or afternoon tea for two cost in the North?: On the prices these venues publish for autumn 2026, afternoon tea for two starts at £70 at Gilpin Lake House, then £76 at The Midland, £85 at The Grand and £98 at The Municipal, and £96 to £120 if you add champagne (Gilpin, The Grand, The Municipal, or The Midland's Royal and Excellence teas). Sunday lunch for two is from £111 at Northcote (three courses at £55.50 each) and £170 at The Angel at Hetton (£85 each). That is before drinks, and service charges of 12.5% to 15% at The Grand, The Municipal and Northcote (with a £2 cover charge per guest at Northcote). Seasonal menus change, so check the price for February before you book.
Do you need to book a Sunday lunch or afternoon tea in advance?: Yes. The Angel at Hetton's Sunday lunch is pre-order only, with last orders on the Thursday before, and it asks for 48 hours' notice of dietary needs. The Grand holds card details and charges £20 per person for a cancellation inside 24 hours or a no-show, and asks you to pre-order any vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free tea when booking. Gilpin asks for dietary needs when you book or at least 24 hours ahead, and The Midland takes card details to secure a table and recommends booking ahead for weekends and special occasions. The Municipal and Northcote don't publish notice or deposit rules on the pages we checked, so ask when you book.
Should we choose afternoon tea or a Sunday lunch for Valentine's?: Afternoon tea is the lighter, cheaper option: £70 to £98 for two at these venues, in a lake-view house, a former railway headquarters or a marble-columned civic palace. Sunday lunch is a longer sit-down meal: Northcote's three-course lunch starts at £111 for two and The Angel's is a fixed £170 for two with a côte de boeuf to share. If you want the Michelin-starred cooking, choose the lunch; if you want the setting and champagne in the afternoon, choose the tea.