The Black Swan, restaurant review: A Michelin-starred pub in the wilds of Yorkshire that is really worth a detour

Boasting a Michelin star and run by the most dynamic combination of brothers since Romulus and Remus, the Black Swan is what food guides used to call a "destination" restaurant. And it's quite a journey to reach it. It's 45 minutes' drive northwards from York, taking in fabulously wild moorland scenery, the awesome Georgian pile that is Ampleforth School and – an eerie sight in the moonlight – the sublime ruins of 12th-century Byland Abbey, showing the bottom half of what must once have been a colossal rose window. You reach the Swan with a sense of achievement and soon feel like checking in for several days. The old pub, built around the time that Henry VIII sacked the abbey, is embedded in the landscape, as if it was tucked into the hillside while Yorkshire was still evolving.

The bar is as snug as a wombat's armpit, a dream of warmth and ancient solidity: blazing log fire, sturdy oak tables, stone-flagged floor, a lovely bay window. No sooner have you sat down than a pinkly sensational nasturtium vodkatini is pressed into your hand, and a small procession of pre-dinner "snacks" appears: a couple of wagyu beef sliders – my wife Angie instantly declared hers the best burger she'd ever had; a mixum-gatherum of cep and trompette mushrooms nipped by a vinegar gel; a tartare of scallop on a squid-ink cracker freshened by some cucumber bits; and a frankly stunning combination of grilled quail breast with fermented cabbage, bean sprouts and roasted garlic, all gathered into a saltbaked celeriac taco and held in place by a bloody great nail.

It wasn't even on the menu. This phenomenal dish of juicy quail with its zesty attendants was just a throwaway amuse bouche. Lordy, you think, what on earth will the main courses be like?

The Swan is a family-run business. The Banks family have lived around here for centuries. Tom Banks and his wife Anne were farmers here, before working in the bar and restaurant; their son James is the genial front-of-house guy and wine wrangler, while his brother Tommy is head chef. You find the restaurant on the first floor, a long, homely, unmodernised dining-room lit by candlelight, with Persian rugs, thin floorboards and quartered windows. Dinner is a five-course affair, with no choice. We started with mackerel, beetroot and sheep's milk, not a dish to fire the imagination. But the mackerel was blowtorched to a delicious char and the beetroot served three ways: in raw slices, as a jammy purée, and in the form of crisps.

It was interesting without being heart-stopping. Scallops with sweetcorn and leeks followed, another combination to raise the eyebrows and make you fear a bland outcome. But Tommy-in-the-kitchen had taken the precaution of burning the leeks, then serving the scallops in the leek ash with sweetcorn purée. Their scallops come from the west coast of Scotland and bounced with freshness. The purée was rich and custardy, the leeks smouldered. It was a great double experience – one luxurious, the other incendiary.

All the dishes came with wine recommendations from James B. With the scallops he suggested a Chassange Montrachet Vielle Vignes 2011, which I initially resisted (£14 a glass?) but finally succumbed to; in its stony purity it was white burgundy paradise. After that, I went along with whatever James suggested.

The main event was chicken with onion and lovage (why was every dish a troika? Had the Banks family been reading Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Three Good Things on a Plate?) which brought us herb-fed chicken, marinated and poached before being oven-roasted. It was soft, subtle and rather ladylike in its pale propriety, but a little bland for my taste. The onions came in an emulsion of lovage oil and mushroom sauce, and went down a treat. A helping of kale lay over the chicken like a drunken triffid.

James reappeared with a palate-cleanser of three lollipops that crammed sweet and savoury tastes into tiny spheres: beetroot with cabernet sauvignon vinegar ice cream (hmmm), cep mushroom and chocolate ice cream (fabulous), and apple and rosemary sorbet (revelatory). We also had "woodruff eggnog", a helping of special doughnuts, flavoured with woodruff (a local weed). Odd but very pleasant.

The final dish was a Banks favourite – apple-marigold ice cream with tart lemon curd, lemon verbena and honeycomb, washed down by an apple-marigold and honey cocktail. It was a mad explosion of flavours, a final burst of fireworks in a meal which didn't quite pull off every flavour experiment it tried, but still hummed and fizzed with invention, from the flower martini in the bar to the fudge chocs with smoky butter that came with coffee. The Banks family shares a name with the family in Mary Poppins. When it comes to food, like the titular nanny, they're practically perfect in every way.

Food ****
Ambience ****
​Service *****

The Black Swan, Oldstead, Near York, North Yorkshire YO61 4BL (01347 868387). Around £50 a head for five courses, before wine and service