Skosh

good quality, good value cooking

Neil Bentinck took York by storm when he arrived in 2016 and started serving exciting, inventive modern dishes with a pan-Asian twist. Since then, he has barely put a foot wrong, earning Skosh something of a cult following – scoring a table means booking well in advance. There’s nothing showy about the 40-seater restaurant, a palette of grey and yellow, rustic hand-thrown crockery and wooden tables, with a row of stools at the chef's table overlooking the open kitchen. The name Skosh is a contraction of the Japanese word sukoshi (meaning small), a clue that the kitchen delivers small plates – around 25 of them at prices ranging from a few pounds for a Lindisfarne oyster with cucumber and jalapeño granita to just under a tenner for miso-glazed hake with courgette, pickled lemon and sunflower-seed pesto. You could limit yourself to three dishes per person, but it's worth splashing out – especially when the line-up promises fried popcorn chicken (with a sweetcorn sauce and Thai basil), cauliflower pakoras with mint, tamarind and yoghurt, or tandoori pigeon skewers. It’s only a mouthful, but a cube of sea trout cured in kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), topped with marshmallow and finished with peanut and lime is outstanding, while their lovely sourdough is served with Acorn Dairy butter and gunpowder salt. And if there is one unmissable item, it’s ‘hen’s egg’, a dish that has been on the menu since day one: a ceramic eggshell is filled with a mousse of Summerfield's cheese, but dig down and you'll find a mix of egg yolk, crunchy crumbs, leeks, black vinegar and sweet sherry (ingredients are tweaked from time to time). Drinks are equally eclectic, from seasonal cocktails and craft beers to a slate of global wines.

3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence