Cross Butts Stable Restaurant with Courtyard Rooms - fine dining and accommodation in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

The Northern Echo, Eating Owt By Mike Amos, Lunch among abstracts

ALONE to Whitby, on what once would have been the milk train. "Not even the Queen gets a train to herself," says the guard from Middlesbrough, cheerfully, though the school run gathers pace as we head down the Esk Valley.

Mr Graham Manser, good egg and chairman of Whitby Town FC, has been charged with finding the best breakfast around. At Cross Butts Farm, he succeeds admirably.
Unlike so many bad starts to the day of late, this was a breakfast to set you up and not to weigh you down.

John Morley was a Friesian cattle farmer, breeder and international judge - "he just loved those black and whites," says Graham - who like many more had his life devastated by foot-and-mouth disease. He tried, and failed, to start again. "I lost the plot," says John. "They'd find me just sitting in the middle of the field. Sue, my wife, said that it if I wasn't careful, it would be me to put down next."

Instead he diversified, the results spectacular, the farm buildings - dating back to 1691 - transformed. Cross Butts Stables, a mile out of Whitby on the Guisborough road, now employs 34 staff, including nine chefs, and has a civil marriages licence.

Officially, it's a restaurant with rooms, marked by a striking stained glass entrance which sums up the story of his life.

Effectively it's much more. That day they were hosting a wake, the following day a wedding and on the Sabbath a baptism party. All human life, and the other thing, too.

Even at 8.45am, the breakfast room was warmed by a fire in a black leaded range, the entire good morning gamut the antithesis of the barrack room fare - and familiar fatigues - found frequently elsewhere.

For one thing there was waitress service - friendly, personable, impeccable. For another the breakfast, a choice including Whitby kippers, was of the highest quality. Uniquely in the column's experience, it included eggy bread, which posh folk call French toast but is probably still eggy bread where the Morleys come from.

The toast came wrapped in a napkin to keep its heat; little knobs of butter melted obligingly. The coffee was perfect after a 6am start.

John, lovely man, has done much of the work himself, materials sourced from across Britain. Thought for the day, he said that he still missed the Friesians, but wasn't it funny how things turned out?