​After a year of visiting some of the county’s finest restaurants, Roy Woodcock looks back at The Journal’s individual award-winners and names our overall Restaurant of the Year . . .

The restaurant entrance

It’s been a momentous 12 months for the Cerutti family; a famous name in the story of East Yorkshire culinary excellence. For 2009 saw the 50th anniversary of them opening their first restaurant in the area.

Joe and Pat Cerutti had moved from Harrogate to the Holderness coast, transforming the run-down George and Dragon public house at Aldbrough into a fine dining destination, whose reputation spread far outside the immediate area.

Joe and Pat’s children inherited their parents’ gift and although the George and Dragon has slipped back into obscurity, the Cerutti name most certainly hasn’t.

Son Tony runs Cerutti’s on Hull’s waterfront, while daughter Tina heads up her own restaurant, Cerutti 2, at Beverley Railway Station.

Both are long-established favourites of mine; but it was the turn of Cerutti 2 to figure amongst the 12 restaurants we recommended during 2009. Dining here is always memorable, the standards consistently high and our review meal was no exception.

So good was it, I have no hesitation in declaring it was the best meal out I had in East Yorkshire (and further afield too, come to that) in the year. It therefore becomes The Journal Restaurant of the Year for 2009/2010.

Cerutti restaurants have always been synonymous with fish specialities and one of the things they do really well are fishcakes. They will always be on the menu; so when we called last April it was almost inevitable that I would choose some for either my starter or main course.

I literally couldn’t wait, so starter it

was . . . wonderfully soft and moist, with succulent salmon flavours shining through.

My main course, “Halibut Fromage” was equally good – fabulous chunks of succulent white flesh baked with a parmesan cheese topping and accompanied by a Dijon mustard and cream sauce.

Sweets were pure indulgence too; in my case a gorgeously sticky treacle pudding with custard.

Cerutti 2 restaurant at Beverley Railway Station

Cerutti 2 occupies the former waiting rooms of Beverley station and is a beautiful old brick structure with bags of character. The interior has a timeless, yet modern, feel – little ever seems to change here, yet why should it? Its clean, simplistic, lines, with the emphasis on black and white, works so well.

Noises off (from the occasional trains that rumble past) add to the atmosphere, which lends itself, appropriately, to a gentle hub-bub that encourages good conversation to go with the exceptional food.

Tina presides over it all with much passion and enthusiasm and provides an object lesson in customer care. Friend or stranger, she will greet you, visit your table and generally ensure the operation runs super smoothly.

There can be few people, surely, who have never visited; if you are one of those make it your new year’s resolution to visit our Restaurant of the Year in 2010. You won’t be disappointed.

As always, it’s been a tough task making the final choice for the award, for all 12 restaurants reviewed during the year are winners in their own right. What has particularly pleased me this year has been the increased number of East Riding establishments to figure, including three in Hull itself (for a place some people refer to as a culinary desert, that’s quite remarkable).

We started off 2009 at one of them, greeting the return of Francois Primpied to Hull (from his native France), like the old friend he is. Many still recall his previous premises at Willerby Shopping Park before his four-year exile in Calais; particularly for its wonderful bistro atmosphere.

The new restaurant, in Willerby Road, is smaller, but still has that certain je ne sais quoi that is wholly attributable to the larger-than-life personality of the man himself.