​The Pipe & Glass at South Dalton has just been awarded East Yorkshire’s first-ever Michelin star. Cue much celebration. But, as chef proprietor James Mackenzie tells Sue Mason, success will not go to their heads . . .

Michelin star winner James Mackenzie

On the walls of an East Yorkshire village pub are menus from some of the world’s finest restaurants, from The Cliff in Barbados to Marco Pierre White London venues.

And now the pub itself, the Pipe & Glass at South Dalton, has officially joined the list of the world’s finest.

In the recently-unveiled Michelin Guide, the world’s most respected authority on dining out, the Pipe & Glass has been awarded an extremely-coveted and rare star; so rare, in fact, that it is the first restaurant in East Yorkshire ever to receive such an accolade.

“And we’re one of only 10 pubs in the UK,” says James Mackenzie, who runs the pub, on the edge of Dalton Park, with his wife Kate.

When the pair moved in just over four years ago, James declared he wasn’t setting out to win a Michelin star; rather, his aim was to produce food of a consistently high quality, using, as far as he could, local produce.

But with his Michelin star cheffing experience at the renowned Star at Harome, in North Yorkshire, people were expecting great things – and they weren’t disappointed.

A Michelin inspector paid his first visit just four days after the doors opened and two years ago the Pipe & Glass received their first recognition in the respected red book – a “Bib Gourmand” award, which is regarded as the first rung on the ladder for fine dining stardom.

At the time they were also breaking new ground for East Yorkshire, as the first ever to receive a Michelin food award. Now they’ve done it all over again by achieving a coveted star. So were we really surprised with the latest news? No. Were James and Kate? Yes.

Ironically, it was Andrew Pern, of the Star at Harome (himself the holder of a Michelin star), who broke the good news to his former protégé.

“We always close for two weeks in January and this year we had been on holiday and we were doing a refurb on the bar when we came back,” says James, already in his whites hours before any customers would be walking through the doors.

“We were running about trying to get that right and we were going to have a little get-together for locals and friends to give them a sneak preview.

“Andrew Pern rang and asked me if I had some news for him and I said no.

“Amazon had sent the guides out early and word had got round, so Andrew said not to take it as read, because he had only heard it and not seen it.”

James was out and about and had taken the call on his mobile, so planned to ring Michelin the minute he got back to the pub. He didn’t have chance though; when he got in, the phone was already ringing.

“So we put the Champagne on ice and the get-together became a celebration,” he says.

The phone has been ringing non-stop since – and not just with trade magazines wanting comments; fellow restaurateurs have also been quick to congratulate James and Kate.

“Locally, people like Richard and Lindsay Johns from Artisan (in Hessle) and John Robinson from White’s (in Beverley) have been in touch.

“We are so proud of John getting a Bib Gourmand (see feature on pages 10 and 11).

“It’s raises the profile of the area and it’s great. The more good places there are in an area, the better.”

By now Kate has returned from taking Toby, the couple’s gorgeous, smiley, nine-month old, to nursery and joins us in one of the bar’s comfy seating areas.

It’s been quite an exciting few years for the couple. They took over the Pipe & Glass in 2006, married in 2008 - the same year they achieved their own Bib Gourmand - and last year became parents. Their wedding ceremony was held at the local church, followed by a reception in a marquee at the Pipe & Glass, with a buffet they’d prepared the night before. The honeymoon was a brief stay at the renowned Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, Raymond Blanc’s hotel and restaurant in Oxfordshire.

“In May last year we also won the national Taste of England Award, when we beat two Michelin-starred restaurants,” adds James, who uses wild garlic and nettles from the garden and puffball mushrooms from the Dalton Estate in his dishes, along with locally-sourced meat, fish and even quail eggs.

The quintessential English country pub . . . the Pipe & Glass is on the edge of the Hotham estate

Kate, who runs the front of house, reveals they have had regular unannounced visits from Michelin inspectors since they opened.

“They do at least three visits a year and sometimes they will make themselves known to you afterwards,” she says.

“They won’t always be by themselves. Sometimes they come with family or partners.

“This last year we have had four or five visits from Michelin and in August the editor of the guide came. He didn’t introduce himself, but we knew it was him.”

“But we are here every single day,” adds James. “I never miss a service, so I am able to speak to them.

“When we first started, we had five members of staff and now we have over 40, with nine full-time chefs.”

He tells me again that they never set their stall out, when they came to the Pipe & Glass, to win a star. “We just wanted to do really good food with great Yorkshire hospitality,” he says.

“I have never asked (Michelin) people, what do we have to do to get to the next step? We are just doing what we believe in.”

Although legend has it you need to book weeks ahead for a table, Kate says that’s sometimes only the case if you want a large table.

“You might have to wait a few weeks, but it varies,” she says. “You might ring up in the week and get the last table, but you might have to wait a few weeks for a Saturday night table or Sunday lunch.”

But fear not; if you’re desperate for your first East Yorkshire experience of Michelin-starred food and can’t get a table in the restaurant, you can have exactly the same food in the pub and you don’t have to book.

“The Michelin Guide people eat in the restaurant and in the bar and they ask to look around the kitchen,” says Kate, who, according to James, does a wicked scrambled egg, better than a lot of chefs.

“Michelin look for consistency so they will probably look to see if they recognise any faces in the kitchen. We have some people who have been with us from the early days.”

After moving to the Pipe & Glass, James managed for a year with the existing kitchen before the couple splashed out on a £120,000 bespoke kitchen, which he insists I go and see. It has been made to suit his exact requirements and though I don’t get excited about catering kitchens, I can see it is a fine specimen.

“It’s good for the staff and it adds to the consistency of the food,” says James.

He tells me the pub supports local good causes, including the village hall, for which he has done fund-raising cookery demonstrations. This year he’s hosting an afternoon tea in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, in memory of his late stepmother.

“Our customers have been so supportive and we call our local ones The Village People,” he says. “This is a local pub and a lot of people just come in for a drink because we do a great hand-pulled ale.

“But others come with the family for Sunday lunch and others for a special occasion.

“We do like to support the village hall and Toby will go to the playgroup there one day.”

Kate says Toby already likes his food. “We haven’t found anything yet that he doesn’t like; as long as you can mash it up, he will eat it.”

And he also likes the atmosphere of the kitchen. “When he was a young baby, he used to sit there during service and watch what was going on,” she adds. “You can’t do that now because he’s off like a rocket.”

The Pipe & Glass sets new levels in restaurant chic

Now that he has the pressure of a star he never set out 7o win, James admits he wouldn’t like to lose it.

“It’s not what we opened the place for, but the pressure is there now to keep it.

“But we are not going to change what we do and we are not going to increase prices, definitely not.

“We are not a two-for-one place, but our prices are nothing like you would pay in other Michelin star restaurants.

“When we have diners in from London, they can’t believe our prices.

“Dover sole in other restaurants might be £30. We do it at £20 because we would like people to be able to afford it and to have it.”

Price-wise I’ve been to plenty of star-free restaurants with higher prices; at the Pipe & Glass, starters are priced from £4 for soup up to £10 for scallops or langoustines. Similarly, you could have the very popular sausage bubble and squeak for your main course for just £9.95, or, if you’re pushing the boat out, there’s turbot at £21.

He is delighted that cheaper cuts of meat are now fashionable.

“With the skill of the chefs we have here we can use cheaper cuts, such as mutton, shoulder and belly,” he says. “The skill, and the time you spend on it, turns it into a nice dish.

“Cheaper cuts are in fashion,” he says. “You only have to look at our specials board. When we buy a quarter of a Longhorn beef, we are not just buying 10 fillets. We do braised oxtails and we salt the brisket for salt beef salads.

“Cheaper cuts are popular because people don’t have time to cook them at home.

“People might choose devilled kidneys, calves’ liver and sweetbreads, which they don’t have at home because other people in the family might not like them.”

He tells me a popular dessert is lemon posset infused with fruit and served with East Yorkshire sugarcakes. “They are like shortbread biscuits, from a recipe that dates back 200 years,” he says. “It only came to light when it fell out of an old accounts ledger at Beverley Town Council. We’ve adapted it because it was full of cloves and you couldn’t feel your mouth after you’d eaten one.”

As if by magic, another popular dessert appears – it is the Chocolate Plate, five desserts on a large oval plate.

“It is five reasons to eat chocolate,” says James, adding that some men with large appetites eat it, even after two other courses, although sometimes people share it.

Kate insists I try it and James says it is not allowed for someone to visit a Michelin starred-restaurant and not eat Michelin-starred food.

You can’t argue with that, of course, so I ponder how to approach this platter of five chocolate desserts. I decide to start with the lightest and leave the chocolate and hazelnut brownie until last, knowing if I did it the other way round, it would be the only thing I managed.

So I start by polishing off the white chocolate raspberry creme brulée, quickly followed by the mint chocolate chip ice-cream. The coffee mocha mousse (served in a tall glass with a long spoon) and the chocolate and orange cone (a concoction of chocolate, sponge, orange jelly and Cointreau) are just as divine, but I only manage behalf of each one.

I do my best, but I can only manage a forkful of the very rich chocolate brownie. Sharing is definitely the way to go with this.

And sharing is what James likes to do with his culinary expertise. His sister teaches cookery at Winifred Holtby School and the Pipe & Glass works with this and other Hull schools, including St George’s Primary School, for whom they put on cookery demonstrations.

“It’s all about inspiring the next generation,” he says.

Call: 01430 810246.