If you are visiting York for a weekend break or a luxury staycation, you will want somewhere fabulous to dine out.

Forage Restaurant & Bar is the perfect hidden gem that you need to know about. It’s located down one of the cutest streets in the city called Little Stonegate. Packed with character and charm, Forage is the place to enjoy small plates and unique cocktails in a super-chilled environment. They even have a secret garden, that you need a password to enter!

Our writer Rachel McAlley visited with her fiancé and they sampled some tasty dishes, met some great staff members, and had an all-round wonderful experience.

Where do we begin? Let’s start with the menu, it includes dishes such as Yorkshire Pecorino Flatbread served with wild garlic butter and zaatar. How about Flame Grilled Prawns with herb zhug, or Confit Potatoes with a wild garlic emulsion? Might you fancy Halloumi with peppered honey, Khadafi pastry and pistachio?

Honestly, every dish is as exciting as it sounds, not only to taste but to see. Each small plate is presented beautifully and is served as and when the kitchen team has freshly prepared it. All the food is cooked over fire and they are serve a wonderfully eclectic contemporary European menu. Each month the owner and head chef at Forage add a couple of new dishes to the menu, making it slightly different every month.

We tried all of the previously mentioned dishes above, but also sampled the Tamarind Pork Belly Bao Bun, Spring Greens with Vadouvan butter, Lamb Rump, and Ribeye (pictured above).

The Pork Bao Bun (pictured above) was the dish that the staff suggested, as it was a favourite amongst the team working that evening at Forage. It lived up to the hype, mouth-wateringly good in fact, as the pork just melted in the mouth.

Our personal favourite was the Lamb Rump (pictured above), which was served with heritage tomato, ratatouille stuffed courgette flower (genius accompaniment), and black olive puree. The lamb is automatically served pink, so if you’re into less pink meat you will need to say, we did and we were blown away with how good it was even when well cooked. A close second came the Halloumi and Grilled Prawns, they were both extremely moreish.

Now, we have to give a special mention to the Confit Potatoes as they were, not to put too fine a point on it, but they were simply orgasmic. All we can say is, go to Forage and order a small plate of Confit Potatoes for yourself and you’ll see why they are organismic! Even writing about them now causes hot flushes, they were so unbelievably good.

We tried a couple of desserts, and they were just as beautifully presented as every other dish, you could tell that time and care had been put into each pudding. The Strawberry Mille Fuille (pictured below) was a taste sensation, with perfectly layered pastry, crème pâtissière, strawberry jelly, and fresh strawberries with sorbet on top. Our second dessert was the Lemon Meringue Pie, which had pretty flamed meringue peaks, delicate pastry, and tart lemon – another resounding success.

It was great to chat with some of the Forage Restaurant & Bar staff as we learned why the restaurant lives up to its name. The chefs personally forage for wild garlic on the outskirts of York city centre, and then transform their foraged garlic into emulsions, sauces, and drizzles. The bar even uses carrot peelings and ends to produce their own unique vodka drinks.

Forage Restaurant & Bar uses the term ‘Graze As You Go’, and this sums their dining style perfectly. It is a restaurant experience where time stands still, small plates arrive, they’re enjoyed with a drink, another exciting dish arrives, and diners continue the cycle – it’s a wonderful way to spend an evening.

Why not visit Forage Restaurant & Bar on your next trip to York? Prices start at £3 and rise to £28 per dish.