The Swan, Harrogate

Opening in early 2010 in the former Black Swan pub, the Swan on the Stray became Market Town Tavern's second Harrogate pub after the Old Bell Tavern in the town centre. This place seems to be a little more food focussed than the Old Bell and perhaps loses a bit of character in comparison as a result. You enter into a bare boarded main bar area with an L-shaped servery to the rear, broken in two by a short section of wall. To the right is a seating area with tidy booths running along the wall and lots of nice enamel beer adverts on display. The left hand side is carpeted and offers pew, low stool and standard seating options under a series of excellent retro beer adverts, all nicely framed on the walls and augmented by a lovely circular pub sign. The day's papers were also available in a rack near the bar. I arrived just after opening on a Sunday lunchtime and the place steadily filled up with people wanting their Sunday roast. I naturally felt compelled to join in and enjoyed a very tasty roast beef with all the trimmings at a sensible price. In sharp contrast to the previous reviewer, I found the service to be very good, with attentive staff making sure everyone was happy, glasses were full and food arrived in a timely fashion. The beer options were extensive, with Rosters Yankee, Daleside Blonde, Okells Spring Ram, Green Duck Duck and Dive, Ilkley Mary Jane, Saltaire Bavarian Black, Taylor Landlord and Black Sheep Bitter all available on handpull alongside a decent keg selection. I gave the Bavarian Black a try and thought it was a fine pint in tip-top condition. This turned out to be the ideal place for Sunday lunch and struck me as a great place to visit with a larger group for a meal. It was difficult to gauge just how good this pub is purely from a drinker's point of view, but the extensive ale range is certain to appease most, making this worth the walk out of town to explore.

Once again OB has described the pub fully below. I think that this one is rather more minimalist than the other MTT pubs I've been in. Good range of beers on the bar but unusually for this pubco the staff weren't very good. It looked like they might have been going through a change of shift but this shouldn't detract from serving customers. The beer was well kept but the pub simply didn't feel comfortable. The worst of the chain in our opinion. This pub is managed by the same guy who also manages The Mitre in Knaresborough. I suspect he was there when we called in here.

Previously the Black Swan this pub has been taken over and renovated by the superlative PubCo; Market Town Taverns, who also own the Old Bell in Harrogate. Customers of MTTs other pubs will recognise the house style in the minimalist light coloured walls, light wood furniture, booth seating and european brewery adverts. They will also recognise the outstanding quality and choice of UK microbrewery beers and less widely available european beers. There are 8 handpulls, on my visit all but one was serving a Yorkshire brewed beer, and eight keg taps with a mix of European and British beers. There is also a reasonably varied wine list and range of bottled beers and ciders from Europe, Australia and the USA. Although there is a consistent house style each pub has its own character and the Swan has been renovated to produce less of the open spaces of other places, I would guess due to constraits of supporting walls. The bar is at the back right hand corner, it is L shaped with two short faces which are a little hatch-like and allow a little too much scope for bar blockers even though there are no bar-stools. In front of the bar to the right is a seating area with booths of facing settles and a few small round tables with stools, the left half of the pub is slightly larger as the bar does not intrude into this part, and it is furnished in a similar manner. The staff, as is usual for MTT, were very slick and on the ball, the customers a mix of beer geek types and some of Harrogate's burgeoning middle classes. There is, apparently, a smoking area to the rear which thankfully removes the smokers from the front doorstep.