Food & Drink

Bloody Luxury Food & Drink

Grand-hotel afternoon teas, chef's tables and tasting menus across the North — the actual difference between one booking and another, worth knowing before you spend the money.

Across the North

Luxury lunch at the North's most serious tasting-menu restaurants

A tasting menu at a Michelin-starred kitchen doesn't have to mean a three-month waitlist and a three-figure bill — at lunchtime, the same chefs plate shorter menus at lower prices, and you can often book for this week. These four kitchens treat lunch as a genuinely different service, not a discounted rerun of dinner.

Across the North

Luxury chef's tables and tasting menus worth planning a trip around

These are the five places in the North worth booking months ahead for: real kitchen-counter seats, Michelin stars held for decades or won this year, and one cellar serious enough to send a sommelier round the table. This isn't "a nice restaurant" territory — every one earns its place on critical form.

Cheshire & Manchester

Luxury afternoon tea in Cheshire for a girls' day out

From a Bollinger-and-thermal-garden estate to a Georgian hall with a Rasul chamber, a Champneys country house and Manchester's original grand hotel Tea Room overlooking St Peter's Square, four proper reasons to get dressed up for cake — no garden-centre stands in sight.

Across the North

Luxury afternoon tea for a taste of the Ritz, without leaving the North

Marble, chandeliers and proper grand-hotel service aren't a London exclusive — the North has its own former railway palaces and civic headquarters doing genuine grandeur, no trip south required.

Harrogate & North Yorkshire

Luxury afternoon tea near Harrogate for a proper catch-up

Harrogate has been synonymous with afternoon tea since 1919, and the town's game extends well beyond the high street — from Bettys' pianist-accompanied Imperial Room to a country estate serving tea in a conservatory built around a 400-year-old olive tree.

Lake District

Luxury afternoon tea in the Lake District with a view

Six Lake District afternoon teas worth booking ahead for, from £30 a head: lake-view lounges and terraces on Windermere, Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater, a Lake House over Knipe Tarn, and one with a twist, a pan-Asian tea of sushi and matcha and yuzu tart at Lodore Falls.

Durham & Tyne and Wear

Luxury afternoon tea near Newcastle for a birthday

A clifftop coastal spa, a champagne-and-harpist countryside estate, and a Grade II-listed boutique hotel five minutes from the city centre — three genuinely special afternoon teas within a birthday drive of Newcastle, all still running afternoon tea as normal despite two of them having spa facilities currently closed for refurbishment.