Number 20

The Hamlet, the Harbour, and the Daily Menu

Port Mulgrave sits a mile inland from the North Sea, connected to the Cleveland Way National Trail and largely unknown to anyone not specifically heading there. The village has no traffic, minimal signage, and the kind of quietness that makes a lit restaurant window feel like an event in itself. Number 20 occupies what was the village pub on Rosedale Lane: one room, 24 covers, an open kitchen visible from most tables. There is no vestibule theatrics, no amuse-bouche parade, no printed philosophy on the back of the menu. What there is, most evenings, is a short handwritten card listing three starters and three mains, built around whatever the season and the nearby coast are offering that day.

That format places Number 20 in a specific tradition within British independent dining: the small, proprietor-led restaurant that has arrived at its own cooking logic without reference to prevailing trends. Tasting menus, sharing plates, and pre-dessert courses have defined a generation of ambitious kitchens across the UK, from L'Enclume in Cartmel to Moor Hall in Aughton. Number 20 has declined all of it. The format here, three and three, with a concise dessert selection and a single-cheese board, is a considered editorial choice, not a limitation.

Where the Catch Fits In

The restaurant's proximity to the North Yorkshire coast is the defining condition of its menu. Fish sourced from waters a mile away operates on a different timeline from anything arriving via a central distribution depot. Wild sea bass carpaccio dressed with olive oil, lemon, and chilli; seared scallops on grilled polenta with spinach and an anchovy-rosemary sauce; crab risotto built on the kind of shell-on stock that takes the better part of a day: these are dishes where the ingredient leads and technique follows. The Italian cooking logic that threads through the menu is not incidental. Italian coastal cuisines, from Liguria to Calabria, share a preoccupation with not obscuring the primary ingredient, and that restraint is legible in every fish dish here. For comparable treatments of Italian-influenced seafood at a different scale, Gambero Rosso in Marina di Gioiosa Ionica and Alici on the Amalfi Coast provide the Italian reference points; Number 20 delivers the same coastal directness from the North Sea end.

The Josper grill, which burns charcoal at temperatures conventional ovens cannot reach, earns its place on the menu alongside fish rather than in competition with it. Fillet steak arrives with smoked potatoes, charred cabbage, and horseradish cream; ribeye with borlotti beans and a herby salsa. Seasonal game from the North York Moors extends the kitchen's range further: spatchcocked partridge grilled with lemon and thyme is the kind of preparation that works because the bird has been handled simply from shot to plate. The Josper's char becomes part of the flavour record, not a disguise for it.

The Michelin Plate in Context

The restaurant holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025, the designation Michelin uses for restaurants producing food of a good standard. In the hierarchy of Michelin recognition, the Plate sits below Star level but carries meaningful weight in the context of a hamlet restaurant with 24 covers, no website, and a daily-changing menu built on local supply. The recognition places the restaurant in the same category of quality acknowledgment as a wide range of UK independents, though its operating model could not be further from, say, the multi-course architecture of The Fat Duck in Bray or the wine-led formality of Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton. The Michelin Plate at the restaurant is a signal about cooking quality, not about format or ambition in the conventional sense.

Among Michelin-recognised UK restaurants that operate from small, fixed-format rooms in rural or coastal settings, the restaurant is distinctive for precision and restraint. hide and fox in Saltwood and Hand and Flowers in Marlow offer useful reference points for how a tight, focused menu in a non-metropolitan setting can carry serious recognition. The restaurant earns its place in that conversation on its own terms.

Service, Dessert, and the Cheese Question

Sue Davies manages front of house alone across all 24 covers, advising on wine and running the room with the kind of efficiency that only works when you have done it long enough to read a table before you reach it. The absence of a service team is not a constraint, at this scale, a single experienced operator knows the room better than a relay of staff ever could. Jason Davies works from the open kitchen, which means the cooking and the service are in constant implicit communication without requiring the kind of runner system that larger kitchens depend on.

Dessert holds to the same discipline as the savoury menu: panna cotta, a sorbet made from Fregola grapes, burnt Basque cheesecake. These are not crowd-pleasing afterthoughts, they are technically considered conclusions to a short menu. The cheeseboard, characteristically, arrives as a single perfectly ripe specimen: Young Buck or Lincolnshire Poacher, served with quince cheese, grapes, and oatcakes. The decision to present one cheese in prime condition rather than a sprawling board is another expression of the kitchen's editorial position. If one thing is worth serving, it is worth serving correctly.

Planning Your Visit

The restaurant is at 20 Rosedale Lane in Port Mulgrave, part of the Saltburn-by-the-Sea TS13 postal area. The hamlet is accessible by car along the coast road from Staithes or Runswick Bay; the Cleveland Way passes nearby for those approaching on foot. With only 24 covers and a reputation that travels well beyond North Yorkshire, the restaurant books up with the kind of speed that reflects both its size and its quality. Reservations should be made as far in advance as possible; no phone number or website is listed in public directories, which means one reliable approach is to check for contact information through local listings. Dress is casual, the room's previous life as a village pub sets the register, and nothing about the format suggests formality. The price range sits at £££, placing it at a mid-premium level appropriate to its recognition and its sourcing.

The restaurant is the kind of restaurant that justifies building a trip around it, then filling in the rest of the itinerary from there.