The story
The Terrace Masham delivers a relaxed take on modern British cuisine, drawing heavily from its own four-acre walled garden just steps away from the kitchen. Chefs visit the grounds daily to harvest over sixty varieties of herbs, vegetables, and fruits for the seasonal menu. This direct farm-to-table approach keeps the cooking grounded in local agriculture while allowing for contemporary plating techniques.
The Good Food Guide recently noted how the kitchen reframes familiar flavors through careful composition rather than heavy complexity. Diners often begin with fried chicken served alongside cabbage slaw and a rich gravy mayonnaise for dipping. A subsequent fishcake arrives beneath chunky tartare and a light pea cream sauce, while gammon wedges feature crispy egg and pork scratchings on top. Each dish balances rustic comfort with refined visual structure, a hallmark of the modern British kitchen here.
The modern British menu adapts to the seasons inside this converted outbuilding near the estate health club. Expansive patio doors frame a neutral dining room that opens directly onto terraced gardens. Heated blankets and sheepskins await guests during cooler months, while summer evenings host live music and cocktails under the open sky. Patrons can also book a seat at the pass to watch the team prepare their meal. Dogs are welcome throughout the space and outside among the garden beds.
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While Swinton Park’s main restaurant, Samuel’s, is as grandly Victorian as the rest of the turreted pile, the Terrace offers something more casual and more contemporary. Located in the same sensitively converted outbuilding as the hotel’s health club and comes with a neutral colour scheme, patio doors and a namesake terrace for fine-weather alfresco, plus a bar for well-made drinks in the evening. The menu deals in crowd-pleasing small plates to share (from 'garden and field, land and sea') as well as banquet-style feasting dishes, though after attempting with difficulty to divvy up an oblong of pork croquette among the table, we found the style of presentation lends itself rather better to three courses ordered individually. Either way, a plate of fried chicken with a gravy mayonnaise for dunking, cabbage slaw and baby gem (for a touch of greenery) should not be missed among the starters. To follow, an excellent fishcake comes topped with chunky tartare in a pea-scattered cream sauce, while a sweet-fleshed wedge of gammon gets a topping not only of fried egg but two crisp commas of pork scratching. None of this, admittedly, is particularly complicated, but it’s all made from decent ingredients, cooked with skill and elevated by elegant presentation: bangers and mash arrives as a pair of sausages with pomme purée and a frothy velouté-like sauce, while an essential side order of onion rings is stacked like a particularly delicious game of hoopla. There’s a children's menu, too – cod goujons, cheesy penne – while furry, four-legged family members are welcome in the bar (where the full menu is also served) and on the terrace itself when the sun shines.
1 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
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