The Conservatory Restaurant & Bar

David Milsom Returns to The Tufton Arms

When we started our sister hotel in the spring of 2000 David went north to Comrie, Perthshire to establish a restaurant there in the hotel, which he did very successfully with an AA rosette uninterrupted for the last 19 years. He has now returned home and we are excited to show off his new menus. Built up with well over  30 years of service the Tufton Arms is justly proud of it’s longstanding reputation for running a noted Appleby restaurant as well as a hotel. Our style is to allow good food to do the talking, and when accompanied by our wine list and combined with the relaxation of the Conservatory Restaurant you can be assured that we are a restaurant in the Eden Valley worthy of your visit.

Our menus have always offered something for everyone as we are a coaching house at the end of the day! With the bar and reception area there is a choice of both informal eating and the restaurant surroundings. We offer both a traditional A la Carte menu and daily changing specials to augment this. David is very industrious and we smoke our own smoked salmon in the kitchen, produce our own gravadlax both traditional dill and a vodka and beetroot. Plus our own jams, pickles, relishes and marmalade all of which can be purchased in the shop and online as well as eaten onsite!!

Long before food miles became fashionable we have always had a policy of buying locally, provided that the quality of the produce measured up to our high expectations. Fortunately it always has, from Dowdings Cumberland sausages for breakfast and their wonderful local beef and lamb. We also source our own Grouse from Dufton Fell, pheasants and venison locally. There is always a strong fish presence on the menu, David loves cooking it and either goes down to Manchester fish market or increasingly we go to Maryport and meet either of the small trawlers that work from there on the quayside. This has given us access to simply fantastic fresh local fish, Dover Soles, Brill, Turbot, Halibut, Plaice, Lemon Soles, Lobsters, Langoustines, Large Scallops have all been regulars on the menu in recent months!!!

The wine shop has grown in recent times and our selection of wines from the shop and the winelist would put many Michelin star restaurants to the sword. We also allow guests go round what Nigel calls “his interactive winelist” and simply choose a bottle from the shop and drink it!! There is just a very modest £13 corkage to pay when you do this. We also have a large selection of special, ports, Cognacs, Armagnac, Marcs, Grappa’s,  liqueurs,  collectible blended whiskies and malts. Many of these are also online where we have over 200 lines listed many of which are specialist birthday wines with drinks going back to 1927 and this is a fraction of what you will find in the shop!!

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