Restaurant Mason

Talk about Made in Newcastle. Owner and head chef Chris Thornton is a local boy, as is talented sous-chef Kyle Liston. After honing his skills in London with another Novocastrian - Brett Graham of the Ledbury (number 14 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list) - Thornton is now set to make his own mark. This is a confident, casual space with white-clothed tables, wall-length banquettes and windows open to the street. Thorton's crisp-fried boned confit chicken wings filled with chicken liver pate are just plain adorable, teamed with house-pickled onions and brussels sprouts leaves. Warm, tender rounds of quail breast are like quail sausage, with matching rounds of sugared figs providing warmly fruity contrast. There are fashionable touches, such as smoked egg with the outrageously good 12-hour pork belly, and a smoked potato raviolo with crisped kingfish fillet, but it's not so fashionable that there isn't a divinely light, just-steamed pudding of orange and coffee syrup cake to finish on. A rising star.