Rockliffe

Hotel review

It sounds an unlikely setting for a gourmet hot-spot – only 10 miles from industrial Teesside, and 10 minutes from the bustle of the A1(M) – but don’t pre-judge. Something happens when you drive through the entrance gates of Rockliffe, up a long avenue of trees and come to rest infront of the vast brick and sandstone mansion surrounded by immaculately clipped lawns, hedges and parkland. Shoulders relax, brain stops whirring, and, frankly, you forget where you are.

The original Georgian and Victorian hall has been much extended, though sympathetically, into a new wing of bedrooms and a vast semi-circular spa complex. A championship golf course has been landscaped into the 375-acre estate.

And then there’s the stand-alone grand colonnaded pavilion-style building which, when you enter, you realise is a (modern) temple to gastronomy. Named ATLAS, here you can dine on a tasting menu of world influences – such as a San Sebastian-inspired croissant of three-year-aged Iberico ham and anchovies, a lobster and brill dish from Marseilles or a Calvados-soaked millefeuille that’s homage to Normandy - all under the direction of James and Maria Close who latterly owned the nearby two-Michelin-starred Raby Hunt.

This is the flagship of a swathe of dining options including Rialto – an Italian-American affair in Rockliffe's glass-walled orangery – the elevated pub staples of the golf course’s Clubhouse, the elegant Morning Room’s magnificent afternoon teas, and the sultry Japanese-influenced Ro cocktail bar. To work up for - or work off – all that indulgence there’s tennis, swimming, padel, cycling as well as golf on offer. Or you can simply give in to the sybaritic lifestyle in the vast spa with its indoor-outdoor hydrotherapy pool, spa garden and Comfort Zone treatments.  

Bedrooms, too, are super-sized. Those in the West Wing, although a little corporate in style, have sofas, a dressing area, masses of hanging space and bathrooms with a TV. Or push the boat out for one of the East Wing's suites, which have a modern elegance in soft cream-and-coffee shades with pale-wood floors, vast sofas, marble-topped tables, bold abstract art and indulgent marble bathrooms often with roll top baths.

Helen Pickles