Chef Nina Matsunaga was born in Germany to Japanese parents. A competitor in Great British Menu in 2024, she co-owns the Black Bull Inn, located on the fringes of the Lake District and the Western Dales, with her partner, James Ratcliffe. Her eclectic dishes feature influences from her Japanese and German using seasonal produce from across the north of England.
The Black Bull has just won the Good Hotel Guide (GHG) Editor’s Choice Award for Best Hotels for Foodies 2025.
THE Black Bull, an Estrella Dam Top 50 Gastropub, is not shy of winning awards; It recently won four AA awards – retaining its Two AA Red Rosettes for Culinary Excellence, and the AA Breakfast Award, scooping the AA five-star Inn Award, and adding a Notable Wine List Award to its haul. It has also just scooped Editor’s Choice Award for Best Hotels for Foodies!
This former 17th-century Coaching Inn, found on Sedbergh’s Main Street, is perfect for exploring the delights of the Lakes and Dales. Nestling at the foot of the Howgill Fells, which writer Alfred Wainright described as a herd of sleepy elephants, it’s an idyllic place to escape, attracting hikers, weekenders, and weary travellers, the latter eager to leave the M6 to drive five miles for a welcome respite on their journey from London to Scotland.
Many a story has been told within this sensitively restored inn with rooms. Bearing witness to countless tales from prominent lawyers, admirals, generals, actors, poets, scientists, geologists, and naturalists since the 1800s.
James grew up nearby. The couple met in Manchester at the infamous Mark Addy, and later ran a foraged and rare breed street food business called The Moocher out of an old army trailer.
With a young child, it was time to go home. They opened the Three Hares Café – a bakery and bistro that found its way into the Good Food Guide.
In 2018 they braved taking on the dilapidated inn, transforming it into a destination Inn attracting a wide range of people eager to sample cuisine with a nod to Japanese, German, Asian and classic British cuisine.
Nina is German born to Japanese parents and the Inn reflects her Japanese heritage, sitting comfortably with rural British influence. The interior design uses the philosophy of Wabi Sabi – the art of imperfection.
As head chef, she also has a master’s degree in food policy and is passionate about food politics and sustainability. Something that has led to a clash with her Japanese cultural upbringing.
“Bluefin Tuna has not been sustainable,” Nina Matsunaga confesses, grappling with her childhood comfort foods and her sustainable values that are at heart of what the Black Bull is trying to achieve.
“It is bouncing back in British waters,” she says. “Because there have been massive efforts to look after bluefin tuna stocks, but that doesn’t mean that we should be suddenly eating it all the time.’’
“We tentatively did get one last November. There’s emerging evidence that, if line caught, fishing is controlled, and sustainably managed, tuna could appear back on the menu, though occasionally. The danger is that consumer demand, overtakes the effort to monitor, and maintain stocks. It’s back, we shouldn’t let it go again.’’
‘’We butchered the whole tuna. We used a lot of it in an Asian way – as sashimi, with noodles, pan-fried, seared, a huge dashi-style broth, smoked and in stock. We respected the animal, and nothing went to waste.’’
‘’The ethics of food are very complex, especially when you start delving into it in any detail, “she says.
“There is a lot of conflicting research about what is sustainable. It’s something I’m passionate about, there isn’t a clear answer. But it is our responsibility to ensure that we don’t endanger stocks and the ecosystems that rely on them. It’s a careful balancing act and we ultimately are the custodians of all that we see around us.’’
Books pile out of every crevice in their home; James’s collection covers wine regions and Nina’s naturally covers food and sustainability, including every aspect of fermentation and even books devoted to non-native invasive species.
Sedbergh is England’s official book town, sporting a plethora of second-hand bookshops with Westwood by far the biggest, housing 70,000 titles in a former cinema. Even the Tourist Information Centre doubles up as a bookshop. But James has banned her from buying any more books.
Eel was another childhood favourite: “Then I read about eel, and it is not sustainable. I had been eating eel all my life and was told this is what being Japanese meant.”
European eel gets shipped to China, raised in China, smoked in Japan, and then shipped back to Japanese shops in Europe. “That is insane!”
“I berated my late mum until she stopped eating eel. It is something I miss because it is one of those childhood connections.”
Childhood influences
The dishes all placed on the table at once for sharing were simple in nature. They always included a bowl of rice, sometimes served with a raw egg and soy sauce.
“Everything was doused in soya sauce. My lips would turn red because of the sodium content. It was painful and pleasurable at the same time. Nobody questioned how much salt you were eating.”
Her hometown, Dusseldorf is on the border of Belgium and France: “We would take a trip to buy some wallpaper and things for the house but really, my parents were using it as an excuse to stock up on seafood. In Germany, our options were specialist Greek or Turkish shops. There was nowhere you could buy large cuts of fresh fish. In France, there was shellfish and all sorts.
“We would pile everything in a cooler box. My family were very food-centric and that is how they showed their love.”
Sustainable meat
Nina will only serve meat from animals reared less than 20 miles away with other produce from the ‘neck of Britain’. (Yorkshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham, Derbyshire, and Cheshire). Ratcliffe forages, making for an exciting hyper-local approach.
“We don’t buy chickens,” says Nina. We can’t find anybody nearby who does sustainable chickens. She adds that there are herb-fed chicken farms, but she sees them as commercialised chickens that get fed herbs. “It’s greenwashing to me.”
James also grew up on a chicken farm, not too far from Sedbergh. “He won’t touch chicken feet because he knows what they have been standing in.
“I will make some exceptions. We are happy to pay £30 for a bird and that will feed us for a week. It’s a funny one because chickens should be sustainable and ethically reared.”
Regenerative farming
Nina sources whole animals directly from the farm where they were reared with the help of expert local cattle picker Jim Mattinson. That way she can get to know the farmers concerned, the breed and how those animals have been raised and looked after.
She also sources regeneratively farmed beef used as part of a land management conservation programme, part of Wild Ingleborough run by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
“Four years ago, we started working with a local regenerative farm. An elderly couple who farm on National Trust land on the Cumbrian coast. They are on the salt marshes and their cows are out in that landscape 365 days a year. The cows are 100% pasture-fed and certified organic.
Nina also sources retired dairy cows. The oldest cow she had was 14 years old. The one on the summer tasting menu, that we tried, was nine years old. This was the first tasting menu Nina had curated.
“It will immediately put in your mind that this means the meat is going to be tough, but it’s not.’
“It goes against all we are told about the right age to cull cows for beef. For us, it’s about the flavour of the meat. It is deeper, has better marbling, is richer than conventional beef and just as tender.”
Nina argues that the beef is healthier than grain-fed beef, she also says cows are better for the environment than sheep and pigs. They are the best at working the land.
The first tasting menu
Walking through the doors into a cosy bar was instantly welcoming, we were greeted as though we were old friends. The 24-page wine list was exciting, erring on the organic, sustainable, and natural/conventional side. Behind the bar is a cellar, “perfect for the wine geek” wanting to find something special. Bottles they have been resting, feature well-known classics and some little-known hidden gems.
I immediately homed in on a Markus Altenburger, Vom Kalk Chardonnay 2021, Burgenland, from Austria. “I haven’t tried that one,” says the man behind the bar. “I will now.”
The wine was slightly fizzy with notes of jasmine and apple cider opening up the palate, followed by lemon peel and sea salt accents. It would handle slightly spicy Asian food.
To the right is the fine dining area, comfortable with its blue walls and original dark floorboards, the walls are adorned with local landscape artwork, Japanese art and even an axe hung up. This is where they serve the tasting menu matched with wines and an a la carte menu, which even features a Howgill Hereford beef pie.
The eight-course tasting menu included local rabbit with Isle of Mull scallop, matched with an Andi Mann Muller Thurgau from Germany. It’s a juicy skin contact wine with strong pineapple and citrus character that is able to compliment the crispy canape shell filled with layers of raw scallops, and delicate rabbit and topped with caviar.
The Howgill Herdwick Lamb and Kimchi, a delicious tartare with fiery homemade kimchi creating an umami-rich and complex flavour and topped with crunchy daikon matched with Szóló- white-fleshed peach and pears combined with minerality and earthiness.
The star on the menu was the nine-year-old pasture-fed Howgill Hereford Beef with XO and daikon. Served perfectly pink and with incredible depth of flavour and Nina was right, it was so tender. The XO sauce complimented the richness of the beef, salty and sweet.
The rest of the menu included Fried St James cheese, pickled walnut, and rum prune. This is cheesemaker Nicola Robinson’s well-known creation, made using the milk from her Lacaune sheep on Holker Farm.
Nina was right, this cheese course is a strong contender: lightly fried, with pickled walnuts (a British delicacy since the 18th Century), adding a buttery texture, sharp flavour and hint of nuttiness complimented by the sweetness of the prune.
The strawberry, pistachio and Meadowsweet (flower) dessert was beautiful and refreshing. The Meadowsweet added an almondy and vanilla touch to the fresh strawberries matched with Maruishi Jozo Miwaku, Yuzu Sake.
Black Bull:
The rooms
The wide red-carpet stairs and landings are deceptively sombre and lead to dark-oak doors into high-spec bedrooms, simplistic in their execution with a Japanese feel complete with a claw foot bath, white tiles and bespoke Sedbergh Soap Co. toiletries called Petrichor, (which relates to the smell of rain on dry earth) some of the bathrooms are separated by see-through glass divides with the privacy of a sweeping curtain.
Dogs are welcome and not forgotten with luxury beds and treats. There was no chance she was going to allow humans to indulge in Nina’s homemade welcome cookies, crumbly and crunchy with every mouthful.
Outside
At the back of the Inn is a huge garden where you will be watched by the beady eyes of Nina’s two Tamworth pigs. The sow is safe from the pot, unlike her piglets. The garden and allotment are left a little wild and there is room for 150 covers.
The original cobbled stable has a full bar and its own cellar alongside a kitchen area with a Gozney wood-fired pizza oven and a locally crafted blacksmith-made BBQ spit and grill. It is a perfect suntrap in the spring and summer months.
Autumn and winter menu – Fermented and non-native invasion species – starting 27 November 2024.
The five-course tasting menu, priced at £60.00 per person will launch on 27 November. You can read more about it here.
Places are limited – up to 40 guests.
Matched drink pairings will also be available each night.
For the Japanese dinner, there are multiple sittings with tables available at 6.00pm, 7.15pm, and 8.00pm
Dinner on the following dates: 27 November, 23 January, and 18 February, starts promptly at 7.00pm.
The fourth and final dinner will be served on Tuesday 18 February as Nina steps into the Black Bull’s kitchen to collaborate with a special guest chef to be announced shortly.
To book a place call 015396 20264 or email: bookings@theblackbullsedbergh.co.uk
The Black Bull,
44 Main Street,
Sedbergh, LA10 5BL
