In an hour's time, my train from Leeds will arrive in London, and I know one thing for certain. I will goggle, as ever, at the sheer number of restaurants I pass on the 15-minute walk from King's Cross station to the Guardian in Farringdon Road.
Hallelujah, then, at the news from Harden's Guide 2008, published today and distilling 85,000 readers' reports into the best eating places in the United Kingdom. Guess which parts of the country have a) the most entries and b) the best place of all? The answers are a) Yorkshire and b) Lancashire.
The answer to b) pains me slightly, for wars of the roses reasons, but it must give any regional-minded Brit particular satisfaction. Lancashire contains some highly sophisticated places where Michelin stars are predictable; but the edge of the moors above Blackburn? That really is a joyful place to find the champion of gourmet champions, in a comfy Edwardian mansion called Northcote. It shows, yet again, that excellence does not need to be metropolitan to thrive and to win recognition. Northcote, run by Nigel Haworth and Craig Bancroft, makes an absolute meal of being local. Haworth learned his stuff, not at El Bulli, but in Accrington and Rossendale technical college. Bancroft comes from a Lancashire textile-manufacturing family.
Why are these northern eateries so good? Three reasons, which also apply to Yorkshire's unbeaten tally of 113 entries in the guide. They source fresh food locally, with the forensic skill and patience of detectives. Menus are like a map; every item preceded by the name of a nearby village, farm or creamery. They seldom overcharge. And they serve a region that enjoys its food and always has done.
Read Dickens on tackling joints as big as his luggage when researching Nicholas Nickleby. Or Lawrence Sterne, half-buried under pies, geese, baskets of strawberries and huge cabbages brought by his parishioners at Coxwold in north Yorkshire, as he struggled to find time to write Tristram Shandy. Nouvelle cuisine had a difficult apprenticeship here.
In the end, at a cutting-edge establishment like Anthony's in Leeds (another place garlanded with every rosette going), it found the answer: small courses but lots and lots of them. Value for money has also been a hallmark of Bradford's curry houses. It is great to find Akbar's balti house in Bradford in the top flight, with Harden's swooning: "The best curry ever, marvellous food, fantastic value."
That's £20-a-head, mind you, compared with 45p and no cutlery, just chapattis for an unforgettable vegetable curry at the Kashmir in Neal Street when I was a lad on the Bradford Telegraph & Argus.
And that's another reason why you should head up the M1 and M6, down the A1 or across the Atlantic/Channel. Northerners are very miserly with praise (Harden's is, naturally, a London production). Big helpings, yes. Big heads, no. It's an equation which leads to lasting quality and sensible prices, like the governor on a textile mill steam engine.
