A handsome 19th-century coaching inn, The Wheatsheaf Inn is a restaurant and bar with rooms, standing back from the road about eight miles inland from Whitby. There are three comfortably sized furnished double rooms for overnighters to choose from, as well as one children’s bunk room, which sleeps two, making this perfect for a family staycation.
On your visit, a proper old snug, complete with a working cast-iron range and tiled floor is the first space you will encounter, before you move through a passageway to the comfortable bar - husband and wife team Nigel and Elaine Pulling are in charge, overseeing a range of local ales, as well as a selection of both old and new world wines. The bar is a pretty space too - all gleaming oak, cosy corners and a much fought over window seat boasting a sweet view of the pretty village.
Beyond that is the dining room, which comes complete with dark wood floors and a roaring open fire beneath a stone lintel and beams. There is a local and seasonal ethos across the kitchen’s lunch and dinner menus, with seafood featuring prominently, as well as game when in season. At lunchtime, you can tuck into the likes of filled sandwiches made with granary bread sourced from the local bakery, warming soup of the day or light bites such as a bacon and mushroom omelette with chips, or wholetail Whitby scampi with tartare sauce, chips and salad.
Come evening, the menu evolves into a three-course affair of modern European dishes - think duck and cointreau pate served on toast, followed by salmon, cod and prawn fish stew in a rich creamy sauce. For afters, a fruit-packed crumble of rhubarb and apples will render you either comatose or determined to find a windswept beach to walk it off.