Shock: Two top Harrogate 'indies' close

Happier times - Talented chef Michael Carr after Harrogate's Restaurant 92 was ranked in Sunday Times list.

Just days after award-winning craft beer bar Ten Devonshire Place announched it was closing, much-praised fine dining establishment Restaurant 92 told its customers it was closing until further notice.

Strictly speaking, neither business was located in a prime spot in Harrogate town centre proper.But both were highly rated for their excellent standards, individual character and originality.

Steve and Andi Aikman, the owners of Ten Devonshire Place, located at 10 Devonshire Place off Skipton Road, tweeted their sadness at making the decision to close last Sunday, which they blamed on rent increases.

Since it opened in November 2014, ‘the Dev’, as it was often called, had won both the Harrogate Pub of the Year award in 2017 and CAMRA Harrogate Pub of the Year in 2016.It had seemed to be thriving in its relaxed surroundings with pub quizzes, food nights, vinyl DJ nights with DJ Trev and live music from visiting Britpop stars.

But its owners said that cost pressures had eventually proved too much.

Restaurant 92 first opened on the Stray end of Station Parade at number 92-94 three years ago.Its talented young chef-patron Michael Carr recently received a supportive review from top restaurant critic Jay Rayner of The Guardian and The Observer.

But this high-end, fine dining establishment, which was listed in both the Michelin Guide and Good Food Guide, posted on Monday that it had been forced to close its doors with “heavy hearts”.

It’s not the first independent Harrogate restaurant to close in recent years.Both Norse on Swan Road and Van Zeller on Montpellier Street fell foul to the times despite glowing reputations.

But Restaurant 92’s owner had previously worked for the Gordon Ramsay Group and Alyn Williams at the Westbury and Restaurant 92 was even tipped for a Michelin star at one point.

The two brothers who ran Ten Devonshire Place first came to local fame in the 1990s when they took the Old Bourbon on King’s Road in Harrogate and turned it into Jimmys, the town’s most popular nightclub of the entire decade.

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