His innovative, hyper-local style of cookery bought the Yorkshire chef fame at The Black Swan in Oldstead, a restaurant with rooms in a former pub. Now Tommy Banks has opened a proper pub, The Abbey Inn, just minutes down the road from the mothership, overlooking the ruins of Byland Abbey. The fully refurbished pub opened at the end of May (three bedrooms will follow in late July), and it’s third venture for the Banks family, who also own Roots, an acclaimed restaurant in York.
Head chef Charlie Smith brings five years working across the Banks family businesses to a pub setting. Meat from the family farm is used in the Dexter beef ‘Byland burger’ topped with cheese, bacon, and chicory root jam, while a sharing plate of home-cured charcuterie including coppa, lomo and salami from the farm’s rare-breed pigs is among the bar snacks. Farm veg appears on savoury dishes such as smoked baby beetroot, ewe’s curd and ‘rhuboshi’ (rhubarb preserved umeboshi-style) and puddings – look out for carrot and chicory root tiramisu, and Jerusalem artichoke caramel sundae.
