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Hi, I've been a regular visitor to HPB - Askrigg for many years and noticed an issue with the general management of the Kings Arms last year (2007). I also notice a couple of "odd" reviews on this site. I've just spoken to someone at the Kings Arms - There is all new management this year - it's all up and running now. We are going there next Saturday 9/8/08. If you read nothing more, accept it is now "all good" Cheers TP

Date visited: 4 August 2008

Review by john dory on 23rd March, 2007

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Myself and my newly married wife booked a table at the charming little coaching inn, in quaint old Askrigg. Upon arrival we were greated at the bar by a friendly and polite young man who ran me through the vast choice of beers that were on offer. I found this to be of great use in deciding what I should drink. Then he aided my wife in her selection of wine. After a quick chat with the staff at the bar one of their waitresses showed me to a table, where she introduced herself and said that she would look after me for the night.(Myself and my wife found this to be a very pleasant touch). Shortly after sitting we weregiven some bread rolls while we made up our minds on what to eat from the exciting menu in front of us. I went for the Moules Mariniare and my wife the Carppaccio of Venison. When the food arrived we loved the presentation and personally I've never had such a good portion of mussel's, and I've eaten a few. The carppaccio was a real treat as neither of us had eaten venison before. The waitress then bought out what were her reccomendations for the main course. A crab rissotto for myself, and seabass for my wife. As before the presentation and aroma was fantastic. Unfortunately I was unable to get the Chef to divulge the recipe for his rissotto to me but he did allow me to buy him a drink and talk food with him for a while.(a thoroughly pleasant chap we found, who used to live in Cambridge and trained under Marco Pierre White!!) Although quite full we decided to share a sticky toffee pud which was heavenly and worthy of a food award in our eyes. We then waddled through to the bar area to have a coffee and was very suprised to see a liquer coffee section in the menu with house favourites labelled. The favourite was an almond liquer coffee and was the ideal way to finish our meals. I would like to offer many thanks to the friendly staff and look forward to going back and having many more good times in their establishment.

Date visited: 26/01/2007

Review by Kate Smith on 29th January, 2007

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We ate at the Kings Arms in January having had the eatery recommended to us by a friend. Highly disappointing. We booked to eat two nights in the restaurant, the first night a party of four and the second night a party of eight. We arrived at the Kings Arms and ordered drinks before been shown to our table. Two of our party ordered a Goats Cheese entree, one ordered Belly Pork and one ordered Moules Marinier. The Goats Cheese and Belly Pork were good but the Moules Marinier were more like mussels steeped in milk and onions, a number of the mussels were closed and some were shrivelled up and the minority were edible. For the main courses two ordered Steak Pie, one ordered Lamb Shank and one ordered Haunch of Venison. The Venison was as tough as old boot leather, the Lamb was fantastic but the Steak pie’s allegedly had a short crust pastry topping, I think not !!! It looked more like the chef had cut a circle of pita bread out and stuck it on the top of the pie. No potatoes were served with the main courses only vegetables( tiny portions served in ramekin dishes), the first carrot picked out of the vegetable portion had a 20cm hair attached to it, luckily all the remaining vegetables were so raw we could not pierce them with a fork, so we left them. We questioned if the Steak Pie topping was short crust and the waitress said she would go and check, she returned to confirm the pastry was short crust, with a simple, “Yes”. One would have thought the alarm bells would have started ringing in the kitchen by this point. I fear not. When asked if we had enjoyed our meal we said ‘No’ and went onto describe the reasons why…… We said we were really disappointed with the food we had been served and asked to speak with the Manager. We moved away from the restaurant so that we would not disturb others eating at the time and moved to a quiet area of the pub to discuss our queries with the Manager. The Manager approached us more like a rugby player settling down to a scrum, than a concern manager worrying about the reputation of the restraint, needless to say he was not at all receptive to our views and brought both the short crust pastry and the chef to meet us, the chef seemed to have dirt behind/underneath his nails this is not what you expect from someone who was “allegedly” trained by Gordon Ramsey and the chap who trained Gordon Ramsey. The chef’s pastry although wrapped in cling film when shown to us was dry as if it had been left uncovered in a warm room for some time. The top and bottom of this experience is that we: A) We were asked not to return on the second night after voicing our views on the meal. B) We did not pay for our meals C) We were not asked to give the Kings Arms a second chance the following night to prove us wrong.

Date visited: 26/01/07