Fifty Two at Rudding Park, Harrogate review: Spectacular and touched by magic

That lemon verbena came from Rudding Park’s kitchen garden, from whose 52 raised beds Fifty Two takes its name. A lot of the ingredients are homegrown, painstakingly tended by head gardener Sarah Owen-Hughes and her team, who are name-checked as often as any of the kitchen team and understandably so, as there’s a freshness, a richness and depth that pervades almost everything. Any restaurant worth its Malden sources everything locally nowadays — but local isn’t enough if the ingredients aren’t any good. Owen-Hughes, it transpires, is really very, very good indeed. Her influence and impact shine through in everything from a rhubarb negroni that begins my night to the yuzu meringue pie which concludes it. Real clarity, real flavour, real bloody ingredients.