Hebden Bridge is a lovely stone built town in the Upper Calder Valley of West Yorkshire best known these days perhaps for its starring role in the BBC series Happy Valley.
I can’t vouch that any particular landmark, street or building was prominent in the series as we never watched it but I can vouch for the Old Gate Inn which we had reccied online prior to our visit.
The building sits at the side of the busy main road through the town and is fronted by a lovely sun-drenched beer garden set behind a low stone wall. It was a bright sunny day and as you can imagine more punters were occupying the outside tables than inside.
We chose to sit inside the cavernous bar with its stone flag floor. The stone built bar itself is a long copper clad topped affair with a typical brass kick-bar along the bottom. You have the choice of eating in the bar area or climbing the stairs to the restaurant above. We chose the bar.
We had the choice of table, varying from large round four seaters to long wooden picnic style tables with bench seats.
Menus were quickly brought and we had the choice of what we had previously seen on the main menu online or the Seafood Festival menu which was an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise.
Mrs Wanderer went for her favourite dish, Caesar salad with chicken, anchovies and croutons. I chose the Moules Frites from the Festival menu. The waitress took our orders but queried my choice, “Is that the Mools Fritz?” she asked. Bless, this is Yorkshire I suppose!
After a short wait of perhaps fifteen minutes the meals arrived. Mrs W commented that Caesar salad’s tend to be deceptively large on arrival and she was not wrong in this instance. My Moules Frites arrived in a black enamel dish with a similar lid for the shells. The frites were pre-salted and were just right: light and crispy.
I quickly dove into the mussels which were in a superb white wine, onion and cream sauce which I was unable to finish due to its richness. The meal was delightful and I made quick work of the shellfish. Two of the mussels unfortunately hadn’t opened during cooking and were discarded. It would perhaps be better not to serve those in the first place but that’s just being picky.
This wasn’t a particularly cheap meal and the total including my flat white and Mrs Wanderer’s Shiraz came to a little over £40. None-the-less it was a meal of high quality and we would definitely return again when we next visit.
Thoroughly recommended!
The Willoughton Wanderer 
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