The Rat Inn, Anick, Northumberland

Apr 4 2008 by Geoff Laws, The Journal.

THE Green Room was a top-notch restaurant. When I heard it had closed, I regretted not going there more often, then, joy of joys, the grapevine stretched its tendrils my way and told me The Rat at Anick near Hexham in Northumberland had been taken over by none other than the people from the GR.

This is when delayed gratification kicked in. It’s my policy not to rush to a new restaurant because it’s either finding its feet or pulling out all the stops to make a big impression and neither is a true representation of what it’s really like. I wait my time, give it a few months and then slide in when things have either settled in or calmed down.

Even though I was confident the expertise Phil Mason and Karen Errington had shown at GR would be easily transplanted to The Rat, I bided my time before booking a table. Now there’s a test of maturity!

The rewards were well worth the wait because I can tell you that what is run of the mill for the Rat is exceptionally good for us.

It shone from the beginning. My roasted tomato, red onion and hot goats’ cheese salad came with a balsamic dressing. The sweetly softened tomato halves were covered with a cuffed slice of melted cheese, gently melding with the purple onion and glazed salad leaves. Each ingredient was a delicious flavour layer.

My companion’s cream of mushroom soup, a mini-tureen of densely creamy mushroom, had tiny French mustard croutons floating on the surface. Hunky chunks of seed-crusted bread made this a very filling starter. Stamina was needed to manage the main course and beyond.

There are certain test dishes for a chef and producing a good steak is one of them. It may sound simple, but knowing how hot to have the surface and when to stop the cooking is a matter of fine timing and Phil had it just right. My pepper fillet steak, locally produced by the renowned Mr Tom Stephenson, had been spice spiked and reverentially cooked to medium-rare perfection.

Proper chips, like a golden log-pile, mounded up against the immaculate meat, with roasted tomatoes and watercress making a brave effort to balance up the fats. Once in a while, and with food this good, it doesn’t hurt to throw cholesterol caution to the wind and eat heartily!

My companion’s sage and onion risotto, with pan-fried pigeon breast, showed Phil’s subtle side. His blending of hazy sage and soft onion in the creamy sauce beautifully matched the texture and flavour of the rare pigeon breast fanned across the bowl. Cutting through the meat released a trickle of juices that mixed with the risotto, linking the elements.

Desserts continued the delight as we strode through the final furlong. My steamed treacle sponge with treacle sauce was a desperately indulgent wedge of foamy sponge saturated with syrup. My companion’s blueberry and apple crème brulée was smooth and slightly fluid, but firm enough to hug the fruit firmly and hold the thick sugar crunch of the brulée.

The desserts’ local tag is that they’re made on the premises and, if we’re counting food miles, you can’t get more local than that!

So now I’ve been there, tasted how good it is and seen how much more there is on the menu, I shan’t be biding any time before going back. The Rat Inn, Anick

Information

Address: The Rat Inn, Anick, Hexham, Northumberland

Tel: (01434) 602 814

Open: Tuesday-Saturday 12pm-2pm, 6pm-9pm; Sunday 12pm-3pm.

Where is it? Just north of the A69 to the north-east of Hexham.

First impressions: Country pub tucked away in a secluded rural corner with summer potential for al-fresco dining in the landscaped garden.

Welcome: Warmly friendly.

Style, design and furnishings: Creative tension between deep raspberry walls and scarlet drapes is balanced by the mushroom and taupe walls. Scattered railway ephemera and occasional framed pictures and portraits. Wood floor with the rat logo running round the edge. Cafe chic country style. Kitchen chairs with throws for upholstered comfort.

Cuisine: Fine, inventive modern British.

Wine: Jean Didier Merlot, 2006. Served too cool to do it justice but, as it warmed to us so we did to it. Pleasant plumminess with good colour. Well priced at £12.95

Service: Professional and pleasantly relaxed.

Value: Very good value indeed at £60.60.

Parking: Car park and roadside parking

Disabled facilities: Partially accessible

Mr Bean pops in for a pint

Published on 20/03/2008, Hexham Courant

STOCKSFIELD’S most famous son Rowan Atkinson returned to his old Tynedale haunts on Saturday.

The Mr Bean star is understood to have been at a family gathering in Corbridge before eating at the Rat Inn at Anick where his fabulous £750,000 McLaren F1 car in the car park attracted almost as much attention as he did.

Owners Phil Mason and Karen Errington said: “He arrived with a party of about 20 people after booking the entire dining room. I think it was a family occasion, and they wanted it kept private, but it was great they chose to come here.

“We prepared menus in advance and everyone in the party had a three-course meal. People in the bar knew he was here because the car attracted quite a lot of attention!”

The comedian, who grew up in Stocksfield, is best known for appearing in Blackadder and as Mr Bean.

The Rat is a pet pub for many

Feb 8 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

IN TRUE Two Ronnies style, it’s a happy new year from me and a sun nien fai lok from him. The Chinese New Year began yesterday and ushered in a period of celebrating ancestral spirits, honouring family unity and anticipating a happy future.

As this is the Year of the Rat, among those gazing expectantly at the 12 months ahead are Karen Errington and Phil Mason at The Rat Inn, Anick, near Hexham in Northumberland.

Karen and Phil ran the Green Room restaurant at Hexham station until last summer with a focus on locally-sourced produce that had customers queuing and Michelin Guide entries totting up. The ultimate goal, however, was a pub of their own; a place where they could develop their undoubted culinary talents, transfer the commendable “buy local, serve local, eat local” thrust and flex a few mussels.

“We looked at every pub there is,” says Karen. “We didn’t want to move too far from Hexham as our children are at local schools, then when The Rat came up we had to make a quick decision and closed the restaurant. Luckily, we managed to move the bookings here without too much trouble.”

The Rat Inn, perched above Hexham, is believed to have been a drovers’ resting house in the 1750s and by the 19th Century was known as the Board Inn. Cattle driven from the Borders would have been rested around Anick’s high pastures before being taken to Hexham market. The old drovers’ road runs about half-a-mile to the east of the pub and is now called – for reasons known only to muddy-booted ramblers – Clarty Lane.

Karen says: “Before we took over the Green Room, both of us worked long hours and we’d just pass each other on Sundays. Phil was head chef at Thistle Hotels and I was commercial manager at Newcastle Falcons, so we thought, ‘let’s do it for ourselves’.”

The Rat is now scurrying along freely and the pair seem to be well pleased with progress. A fine range of beers sits on the bar – three from within a short distance of the pub which are rotated regularly alongside regulars Deuchar’s IPA and Draught Bass. This week it’s Allendale Golden Plover, Wylam Magic and High House Farm Nel’s Best; next week it could be something from Geltsdale Brewery in Brampton, Cumbria; one from Consett Ale Works, or a Newcastle-based Hadrian & Border Brewery beer. This appears to be giving Karen and Phil as much pleasure as presenting beef and lamb from West Mill Hills Farm at Haydon Bridge and game from David Ridley in Hexham. Provenance is everything in this operation.

“When one of the ales is finished we put another one on straight away,” says Karen, who has already anticipated our next question. “To have five ales on through the winter is quite something. This is the type of place where people want to try different beers and lots of men especially go for the ales with their food. And, people like a pub atmosphere.

“We haven’t stuck to the standard pub wine list, either, and have some really interesting ones at all prices. I’m surprised how well the rosé sells and we do champagne by the glass which is very popular.

“It’s hard work, though. We have people who come in every day during the day, then we have the early evening crowd and the later crowd. There’s a good company on a Friday night who come in after playing football and they always like to try something new. We had a beer from Hexhamshire Brewery recently which was really good. A lot of custom comes from around Hexham but a lot drive from further afield – we’re only 20 minutes from Newcastle along the A69.”

Phil is convinced people will go out of their way to find decent food and drink and to seek out the ambience they have drizzled in clouds.

“Most of what we sell is ale, we don’t sell so much lager,” he says. “People get to know quality and they’ll travel to get choice. They are interested in where things come from. I think it’s because the farmers’ markets have caught on in a big way.”

There are at least three versions of how the pub got its name. Some say it was the meeting place for local rat catchers; others claim the biggest rat ever seen was caught there, but Karen plumps for the historically plausible.

“Jacobite sympathisers in the 1700s would use pubs as meeting places,” she says. “The Government had spies everywhere trying to find them and the landlord at the time passed on information. After that he was known as The Rat. One of our regulars is an ex-Daily Mail journalist, he told us that one.”

The pub has a flagstoned floor which delineates the bar from the dining areas where exposed floorboards emphasise the difference. These are also divided by a knee-high wall which customers will no doubt park on at busy times, but is also where the day’s newspapers are scattered (is it just newspaper people or is there something extra appealing about a pub that supplies a range of reading matter? We must ask the man from the Mail).

The bar counter has undoubtedly seen service as a sideboard; it’s a prized piece which is probably much happier bearing the weight of handpulls, full pints and expectant elbows rather than neatly-folded tablecloths, serviettes and runners. A fine black cast-iron range blazes away at one end of the room, with a smaller one keeping up appearances at the other.

“I don’t think that one had been lit in 20 years, so I thought I’d give it a try,” says Karen. “It’s been lit ever since.”

Pews, stools, benches and brocaded chairs create a merry mix and on the shelves and walls sit mouse/rat figurines, a model of the pub, brass tankards, cigarette cards, a loudly-ticking clock and a range of chamber pots attached to the ceiling like Michael Bentine’s Bumblies. What’s the collective noun for chamber pots? A pissoir? A tinkleton? A goesunder? The Mail man would know. A conservatory room offers reasonable privacy and fabulous views virtually to Tyneside and across into County Durham. Another room was refurbished for people who prefer to eat restaurant-style rather than in the main bar area, and the terrace and beer gardens offer tremendous scope and endless options for summer days and evenings.

Menu-wise, the specials board changes daily with whatever is freshly available to be given the Phil harmonic treatment. For example, leek risotto with blue cheese glazed fennel looks fabulous, as does roast rib of beef, watercress, chips and bearnaise sauce. Now add a dash of Golden Plover, Wylam Magic or Nel’s Best. You don’t get advice like that in the Mail.

alastair.gilmour@ncjmedia.co.uk

‘The Government had spies everywhere trying to find them and the landlord at the time passed on information. After that he was known as The Rat.’