1 Parliament Street, Harrogate (01423 814 070). Meal for two, with drinks and service, £40-£80

It’s late at night and I am lying in a hotel bed with a tart. Don’t judge me. You have no idea how lonely this life on the road can be. I have needs. I have desires. And this tart is more than ready to satisfy them. I refuse to feel any guilt. In this I am aided, of course, by the fact that the tart in question is of the Yorkshire curd variety. God, I’m so bloody rock ’n’ roll, lying here trying not to get perfect shortcrust pastry down my chest. But that instinct to fastidiousness – yeah, as if! – is overwhelmed by pure greed. The shameless alchemy of sweetened cheese with the currants and the hit of citrus from the lemon curd, is a beautiful thing.

It is comforting, too, for it is a reminder that Bettys of Harrogate is also a beautiful thing. The problem is that my meal there earlier in the day had not been so comely. In truth some of the cooking had been to finesse what Made in Chelsea is to high art. It made me sad. All I wanted to do was write a love letter: about small things, and how they accumulate at Bettys; about the way happiness comes perched on a paper doily and bitter realities can be held at bay by the liberal application of cake.

Then I ate lunch and my love letter took a darker turn. So on the way out I got a takeaway. It wasn’t just the Yorkshire curd tart. There was a macaroon. Not one of your fancy, la-di-da French ones, the colour of a children’s cartoon, in two halves sandwiching something ethereal with its pinky cocked. It was a proper British almond macaroon, all toastiness and crunch and softness. It was a glorious reminder of what the word macaroon meant before it went all metrosexual. And, of course, there was a fat rascal, that cross between a scone and a bun and biscuit, with its two glacé cherry eyes staring me down. It was a tribute to the baker’s craft.

I lay in bed, three sheets to the wind after a night painting Harrogate (sort of) red, and worked my way through the lot. I felt reassured. It really is a great place. With Bettys, now a chain across Yorkshire, you just have to know what you’re doing.

Dear old Bettys. No apostrophe, as you’re asking. Nobody’s really sure why. There just isn’t one. Nor is there a Betty, or at least not one that anybody can agree upon. It’s just part of the marketing. As is the fat rascal. It’s seen as a quintessential part of the great tea rooms and their story. You can’t leave without one or, better still, a box of four. Except they have nothing to do with Bettys, save that the restaurant started serving them in 1983 and trademarked the name.

But we will forgive them this because the whole experience is a piece of brilliant low-key marketing. It’s a realisable fantasy. It’s one of those places to which you should go in the event of nuclear war, because nothing bad can ever happen there. It is civilisation in potted aspidistras and glass-topped cases of cakes lined up like brooches; in marquetry and lightly varnished wood and the sort of polished silver of which your great-aunt would approve. Fact: nobody has ever been known to fart in Bettys.

You go for fabulous service from the sturdy waitresses in their perfect uniforms with perforated blouses, as if they’re actually wearing doilies, and the general muttered entreaty to accept that, in here, all is right with the world. Oh, and cake. You go for cake. Just be wary of the cooking.

The founder back in 1919 was a Swiss chap called Frederick Belmont, who allegedly found his way to Yorkshire because he remembered a town with a name that sounded like bratwurst and ended up in Bradford. Naturally they play up to the notion of the “Dales meets the Alps”.

In terms of their bacon and raclette cheese rosti this is less “Dales meets the Alps” than cook looks at picture of Alps and then jumps up and down all over a noble culinary tradition in hobnail boots. My mother-in-law was Swiss so I know a bit about their clever, evil ways with potatoes, fat and cheese. It is about the perfect balance of salt and crunch and cardiology. This unadorned, rather small rosti is a limp, squelchy thing which would only crunch if you put it in the freezer for a few hours and then hit it with a spoon. It is regret modelled from carbs and fat. It’s also light on both the actual bacon and cheese. For this they charge £11.75.

At least that’s cheaper than the chicken schnitzel – which isn’t. It should be a beaten-out breast, breaded and fried. These are two lozenges, or rather dry, unbeaten breasts, breaded after a fashion, with a sneeze of melted cheese. Add a few vaguely roasted cherry tomatoes and a pile of curiously uniform chips and, voilà, £12.75.

You could accuse Bettys of quietly taking the piss, but they do it with such good grace and manners it’s hard to feel too bad about it. The room is full of satisfied elders of the tribe, each with a nimbus of white hair, plus family groups complete with otherwise recalcitrant teenagers who come willingly because it takes them to a safe place of childhood away from the hormonal rush of adolescence. Plus, there are pianos in many of the rooms. I can’t think badly of a room with a piano in it.

The cake trolley arrives and it is a shiny, happy thing. And OK, the strawberry Paris-Brest, with its whorls of cream and light, corrugated pastry rings, may have been at its best an hour or two ago, but the vivacious, sticky lemon torte has proper squelch. Bettys does not do dry sponge. It does not know how.

Here is a fine list of teas and coffees, as there should be from the owners of Taylors of Harrogate. But, instead, we drink strawberry bellinis the colour of the sunset on a motivational poster. The bill is £60. Still, there is the takeaway counter which reminds me how good they are at doing the things they do best, even with my doubts over the savoury cooking. There is a wistfulness to leaving Bettys; a sense of loss, which my tart and I deal with late at night in my bed.

Jay’s news bites

■ Soho’s Maison Bertaux, which opened in the 1870s, claims to be London’s oldest French patisserie – and who am I to argue? Whatever its continental antecedents, like Bettys it represents a particular English tea-room tradition. In this case it’s the rakishness of Soho instead of the Yorkshire genteel. Service can be chaotic, but it has an uncontrived charm. Most importantly their cakes are minor miracles. (maisonbertaux.com)

■ Hurrah! Yogurt company The Collective Dairy has launched a blackcurrant and beetroot flavoured yogurt. Co-founder Amelia Harvey said: “Until now, most of us… never dreamed of having yogurt with vegetable in it.” This is true; none of my dreams have involved beetroot-flavoured yogurt. It costs £1 for a 150g pot. Reports please. (thecollectivedairy.com)

■ Former MasterChef winner and rampant Japan-o-phile Tim Anderson will be running a pop-up Japanese canteen at Brixton’s Market House pub for the whole of August. Expect a robust menu of ramen, karaage and yaki-curry. (market-house.co.uk)

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1