I think I live in a pretty amazing part of the country, but to the lay-blogger London and the Southeast (Brighton, Margate even) are where everyone seems to congregate for events. But you’ll have to just take my word that Yorkshire has its own cool scene that is definitely worth checking out. You have cool popups and foodie events all over York and Leeds, beautiful natural surrounds (moors, dales and coast within an hour’s drive, and a very vibrant arts and creative scene.) So I was thrilled when an opportunity landed in my inbox to get to explore somewhere unexpectedly close to me: Malton.
Malton is about a twenty minute train ride from York or a pretty 30 minute (in good traffic) drive. And in recent years it’s made somewhat of a name for itself in the food scene. But I’ll get to that later.
I was in Malton with Inntravel, a travel company right up my alley. They are a “slow holiday” travel company (it couldn’t be more on brand for me, right?) offering self-guided tours throughout Europe, with an awesome focus on walking holidays where you walk across stunning countryside from one beautiful hotel to the next whilst your luggage is transported ahead for you.
We took part in one of their shorter walks: a taster, if you will. A 7.5 km walk around the countryside near Malton ducking in and out of the edges of the Castle Howard estate. (And even getting some gorgeous glimpses of it.) The walk was so picturesque. The Howardian Hills are snuggled in between the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Wolds and the Vale of York. It’s lovely to be out in the countryside on any nice, sunny day but the hills and fields around Castle Howard, from Coneysthrope to Welburn really are something special. I even spotted a peacock in the wild which was especially thrilling!
If you want to focus on a walk in the area that combines my love of food, I recommend the Yorkshire Gastronomic Trail which starts in beautiful Harome and ends in Malton, taking 3 days and exploring all the gorgeous villages, areas of outstanding natural beauty and of course, important food stops: from a pub that William Wordsworth loved to the Bolton Village Creamery to get a behind the scenes look (and tasting) of their award winning cheese.
If for some reason you are Yorkshired out, Inntravel has lots of other interesting sounding UK walking holidays. I’m personally most intrigued by the Landscapes of the Peak District trip and the Holy Island and Northumberland coast walk (check the latter out; it looks STUNNING).
But back to Malton.
The Food
After we finished our walk, we ended up at the lovely Talbot Hotel in Malton (formerly home to famous chef James Martin) to talk all things Malton and food. Malton a decade ago was undergoing the slow decline that a lot of market towns in England had undergone, and to pull itself up by the bootstraps, and to offer a reason to visit other than the fact that it is close to Castle Howard, it aimed to be the foodie hub of Yorkshire and perhaps all of England eventually. Malton is still owned by one family in a very “ye olden time” way (the Fitzwilliam Estate) and it is refreshing to hear about an aristocrat get so stuck in to town planning and generating new ideas.
I knew the Malton Food Lovers Festival was big, but I didn’t realise how enormous it was until this trip. Over 30,000 people attended it last year. But Malton’s food regeneration is present 365 days of the year, not just during the food festival. With the Talbot Yard Market leading the way, lots of amazing independent food suppliers have set up home in Malton; from Rare Bird Distillery (for all you gin lovers), to Groovy Moo Gelato, to Roost Coffee to Bluebird Bakery (a favourite of mine as they also supply my favourite bread in York) to what was the best discovery of the trip for me: Florian Poirot’s patisserie. It’s not every day that you find out that the UK’s Pastry chef of the year is basically on your front doorstep.
It was lovely to get to hear him talk so passionately about using local ingredients and how he develops new macaron flavours. I loved his gin & tonic macaron and I especially loved that he collaborated with his food neighbour Rare Bird to develop the gin flavour in the macaron. I’ve had some good macarons in my life. I’d like to consider myself somewhat of a macaron connoisseur; from Julien Plumart to Pierre Herme, to Ladurée (of course), I’ve tried them all. And these were some of the absolute best.
Aside from the phenomenal quality of all the food we tried during out Malton visit, what struck me most was how passionate everyone was about what they do, their products, and their engagement with the area. I want to give a special shout-out to James from McMillan’s of Malton for letting us taste so many gins and answering all my seemingly inept gin-based questions with good spirits and loads of passion. The last thing we did in Malton was join the insane queue (it was a hot day) at Groovy Moo to try their famous gelato. Dairy-free readers, never fear: they had multiple options for you. I opted for the dairy-free strawberry, but I almost went for the vegan chocolate. If you’re a dairy eater they had some marvellous sound gelatos: like Jammy Dodger. Mine was so creamy and fabulous that you can be sure that I’ll visit again before the summer is over.
But before hoping on my train back to York, I had to nip in to Florian Poirot’s to buy some macarons. It was all in the spirit of supporting local business, obviously. Not in the name of scoffing as many macarons as possible. No, not that at all.
There’s a gin festival this upcoming weekend if you are in the area. And if you have a free weekend this year’s Malton’s Food Lovers Festival is the 26th and 27th of May. And as a random side note: Malton is extraordinarily dog-friendly, so you can bet that I’ll be back with Harold next time.
Would you visit Malton now?
***I was a guest of Inntravel and Visit Malton, but as always, all opinions are forever my own.***
