The story
Pignut & the Hare in Thirsk delivers refined modern British dining within a historic Scawton inn, where Tom and Laurissa Heywood transformed a former village pub into a destination for seasonal cooking. Their approach treats regional produce as a narrative, sourcing directly from local farmers and foragers across the Helmsley Hills. Tom channels this philosophy into a flexible menu that shifts with the weather, recently sharing his methods in a new cookbook alongside Laurissa. The kitchen operates with a clear focus on sustainability, treating trimmings and spent ingredients as valuable starting points rather than waste.
Guests encounter an element of deliberate discovery when the menu arrives, as the team prefers to reveal exact preparations and garnishes only when dishes reach the table. Early plates often highlight resourceful techniques, such as a trio of small bites crafted from leftover bread whey, smoked hake scraps, and spent coffee grounds. Midway through the meal, richer regional flavors emerge, including a Konro-grilled pork cube glazed with sweet cicely or a tender trout tartare dressed with fig leaf emulsion. The progression typically concludes with inventive sweets like a penny bun ice cream finished with mushroom crumbs and a nostalgic retro cake tin containing mini butterfly buns.
The dining room balances original mellow stonework with calm, contemporary furnishings arranged in soft neutral shades. Laurissa guides service with an informal warmth that keeps the pace relaxed across both the half and full tasting menus. Carefully selected biodynamic wines complement the British cuisine, while the remote valley setting has earned steady recognition from The Good Food Guide. Visitors frequently note how the unpretentious service makes high-end culinary work feel both accessible and deeply rooted in its landscape.
Recognition
Details
History
3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
Deep in a wooded valley, five miles from Helmsley, Scawton is a remote hamlet with a scattering of houses, a 12th-century church and this welcoming mellow-stone inn. It was once a neglected village boozer before former owners Paul and Liz Jackson reinvented it as a tasting-menu-only restaurant with four bedrooms. Now Tom and Laurissa Heywood have taken over – an obvious fit, since they had been running Pignut in Helmsley, serving a multi-course menu similar in style to the Hare. After a gentle upgrade to create a calm, contemporary space in muted, neutral shades, Pignut has been reborn. The two-tier tasting menu (half £65, full £110), with organic and biodynamic wine pairings, begins with 'Wastage' – trimmings and ‘waste’ from other dishes that chef Tom Heywood transforms into a trio of exquisite canapés: a teeny ricotta-filled cracker made from leftover bread and whey; tiny tarts of smoked hake; and a choux bun infused with spent coffee grounds, black pudding purée and rhubarb vinegar. From here, the full menu takes diners through a dozen or more flawless small courses, notably a delicate trout tartare with a fig-leaf emulsion, fennel vinegar and fennel fronds. A standout dish is the skewered cube of tender, sticky, pork belly from the Konro grill, given a glossy BBQ sauce infused with sweet cicely. Alongside is a soothing dish of brown butter hollandaise, in which a dark, marinated and glazed lion’s mane mushroom lurks. Then it’s on to lamb, mussels, hake, and finally venison, An outstanding ice cream made with a penny bun and more lion's mane fungi, topped with a mushroom and coffee crumb and a fabulous caramel sauce, was the pick of the two desserts, with the finale being 'Nan’s cake tin' – a retro tin filled with mini butterfly buns in a light-hearted reference to Tom Heywood’s childhood. The full menu is a three-and-a-half-hour tour de force , a culinary adventure that embraces Pignut’s ethos of local, seasonal and sustainable produce. The front of house team, led by Laurissa Heywood, know their stuff and generate a warmth and informality that's sometimes absent from high-end dining. In this remote corner of North Yorkshire, the Heywoods appear to have found the perfect home for Tom's considerable talent. His Nan would be proud.
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