Lord Crewe Arms

The Lord Crewe began life in the 12th century as a guesthouse for visitors to Blanchland Abbey, an honour it retained until the Dissolution. In succeeding epochs, it became a commodious hostelry for lead miners, and has now come into its own as a sophisticated luxury hotel and restaurant. There's an abundance of eating spaces, from the Bishop's Dining Room, reached via a sweeping stone staircase, to the ground-floor Hillyard with its vast inglenook fireplace and vaulted ceiling, where heraldic shields and ancestral portraits recall the feudal era.

The core menu deals in fortifying, amply proportioned plates of food that could sustain you on a crusade – or a brisk Northumbrian walk, at least. There are mighty game dishes – roast partridge with bread sauce, venison loin with parsnip, blackberry and red wine jus – as well as a more contemporary approach to fish that sees rainbow chard, crushed ratte potatoes and braised fennel line up alongside a majestic hunk of halibut. At our lunch, the meat dishes were up to snuff, from game faggots bedded on braised red cabbage and cavolo nero in a vividly seasoned grain mustard sauce to smoked bacon ribeye with rum-soaked pineapple and a crispy duck egg. The triple-cooked chips are heftily satisfying, too.

In the circumstances, a lavender-scented crème brûlée seems a delicate option, but a well-executed one anyway – although, if you're throwing caution to the North Sea winds, look to sticky toffee pudding or Opera gâteau. A list of popular varietals by the glass opens a wine collection that might once have been all claret and Burgundy, but trots the globe with nimble efficiency.