Castle Howard, Boathouse Cafe in Ryedale

Good for drinks, food was not the best - over cooked pizza and dry chicken nuggets - the kids were livid.

Cafe wasn't open. But lovely place to sit Nd take in the views. We took our own picnic

A fantastically located old-style cafe by the lake. A favorite place to spend time in a nostalgic atmosphere away from the hustle and bustle of the city and... phones. A big advantage of this place is the lack of internet coverage. You can devote your full attention to another person or engage in undisturbed thoughts.

Disgusting behaviour from staff, very unhygienic! Dipping dirty cloths in our drinks and expecting us to drink it and lying to our face when questioned,amount you have to pay here for things like this to happen!

The food was tasty, and the location had a lovely seating area overlooking the water. The staff were friendly and welcoming.

I pushed another user of the cafe into the lake because he called me stupid and the security kicked me out. I am not stupid, thank you very much! Nice food

Could do better! Un welcoming . Just drinks and a few cakes, winter time I guess. Must be lovely in the summer.

Quick coffee and rest room break, great for dog walking

Buenas vistas para un café o una hamburguesa La comida no es de mucha calidad, pero tampoco es especialmente cara

Always friendly and nice to watch the ducks with a hot chocolate

Nice quiet spot by the lake. Friendly staff and nice decking area overthe water with great views

Lovely sitting by the lake with a coffee so peaceful perfect atmosphere for a beautiful place

Everything was fine just a tad bit expensive

Nice visit, coffee ☕ lovely but fell a little short on cake choices. Lovely looking out over the lake & friendly service for sure 👍

Reasonable choice but quite expensive and slow service

Nice burgers, hot dogs, fries and ice cream. Quick service and beautiful views

Absolutely fabulous venue, with amazing views over the lake, plenty of outdoor and indoor seating, catering for all the family.

Just sit and a while take in the beauty of this place. Coffee and ice cream 🍦 😋

Called boat house but no boats available a disappointment. Atmosphere excellent

Wunderschön gelegen mit herrlichem Blick auf den See! Spielplatz vom Feinsten in der Nähe, Service und Angebot ansprechend. Habe den Aufenthalt sehr genossen!

Fantastic setting for a cafe, right on the edge of the lower lake, to the front of the house. There is a limited choice of food and drinks and they ate a bit pricey when compared to most high street independents. The views over the lake, the waterfowl, swallows, jackdaws, dragonflies and damselflies more than compensate, though. Afterwards, our crumbs were cleared up by a very friendly mallard duck.

Overall good but like everything at Castle Howard a bit expensive.

A welcome location for tea, coffee and cake if you are walking around Castle Howard's extensive gardens. Beautify views across the lake.

In Boathouse Cafe in the Castle Howard, there are nice seating areas by the lake. Following on from that, food is also not too expensive and medium priced for its size. Food is served in big portions with good quality.

All doors open on a cold day, did not expect cash (card only). Hot drinks served in plastic cups, scones served without a plate with a wooden knife???? Rock hard butter. Gingerbread man sold as “Gingerbread Person”. Toilets out of order and had to use a port a loo.

Great place to stop off and grab food and a drink. Play area next to the boathouse is a great way to unwind for children and adults to enjoy the scenery.

Staff are lovely, food selection is excellent

Brilliant Christmas lights and decorations Definitely coming back

Waited over half an hour for two cappuccinos and two flat whites and the the pizza place was shut

Lovely café in the Castle Howard Estate. Great deck overlooking the lake. Fresh sandwiches and drinks available.

Very relaxing venue and very dog friendly

Hot drinks, sandwiches and cakes with a lovely lakeside deck

I saw the good view and took a couple of pictures of the lake. It was nice.

Nice little cafe in a beautiful location

Shame there's not a little more on the menu and a couple of alcoholic drinks

Lovely sandwiches,but of a wait for coffees

Lovely setting for a snack and a cuppa. It was a beautiful day.

Good choice of things to drink and eat. Service is a little on the slow side.

A lovely place to just sit after walking around the house & gardens and take 5 minutes to just sit and enjoy a coffee while looking out over the beautiful lake. Be prepared to pay £3.20 for a hot chocolate but you could pay more in certain places. Spacious seating area behind the main boathouse

To expensive for a family.Food is a disgrace.. and very expensive. Every thing is cold and i wouldnt give to my dog.Foregn lady behind the counter very rude gave us the inpression she didnt want to be there.Her attutude was appalling.

Excellent service, flapjack was dryer than I'm used too but ok. Place itself was lovely

Great place to stop for a coffee and toasties. Friendly staff

Lovely cafe, limited menu, too expensive.

Bought ice creams for grandchildren

A wonderful piece of national heritage that has been extremely well preserved and looked after by the owning family. This visit was made even better by the boathouse café with the best pulled pork bun I've ever had, and an extremely tasty cinnamon bun. The pork was extremely generous in its portion size, and so juicy the bun struggled to stay together! The cinnamon bun was very tasty, a little dry from being out for a while, but the centre was moisture and suitably sticky. All in all, a great piece of history with an amazing little café - worth a visit!

Lovely views but slightly overpriced ice creams and drinks.

Fantastic piece of English Heritage in the heart of Yorkshire. Awesome grounds to explore, incredibly well looked after by a dedicated Team. Fantastic historic house again kept in tip top condition for us all to enjoy. We are Members here and visit regularly. Love it every time.

Very busy over the Easter break. Poor young man in the ice cream booth, was single-handedly serving a vast queue. Smiling away, did a first rate job, bless Him.

Lovely place near the kids park, so great place to have a quick luch and the pizza is amazing x

Never enough seating, ques of people that move incredibly slowly due to the rate at which people are being served. Options for food and drink at the boat house is very limited However the potential for ideas and to do things is insanely high.

Nice walk and food from cafe makes it worthwhile

Lovely place to stop on a walk round the grounds. Nice sandwiches and cakes, and good coffee too

There are a number of cafes on the Estate. This one is situated by the Great Lake and so, if the weather is not inclement and there is seating, means you can sit and look over the lake which is very peaceful. The cafe is close the adventure Playground so it can get quite busy

Great but can be busy when the kids are about

Lovely place to sit and watch the wildlife on the lake while having a relaxing cuppa.

Wanted an icecream but didnt have any

Lovely walk round the estate down to the boathouse, a cup of coffee to warm up and view the ducks, swans and geese on the lake

Delicious food with beautiful views

Service a little slow but quality made up for it

A lovely place to sit and look out over the lake. You can get some nice refreshments too from the boathouse cafe.

Food was nice but you pay a premium as a captive audience. Ran out of most things on the menu before the lunch crowd had finished being served so those last had very limited choice.

Decent food but get there early as the sandwiches are pre made. Great out door eating.

Long queues and a limited range of food available made this a mediocre experience. Staff friendly and apologetic

Nice reasonably priced food. I feel they need more seating in the area though, we struggled to find somewhere as quite a few families had gone in to Skelf Island leaving all their belongings at the tables so others couldnt sit down.

Lovely place to eat a range of food and drink looking over the lake.

Lovely to have a coffee and cake from the boathouse and sit by the lake. Nice and quiet this morning just the ducks to amuse us.

Excellent food and service at a reasonable price

Beautiful gardens and wonderful play area. House was not open due to filming for TV at time of visit. But the children loved having an adventure through the gardens and running around skelf island. We ate at the outdoor pizza oven which was very good. The place was not crowded and there were lots of stations to sanitise hands. We had a lovely day.

Great coffee and wide selection of cakes and sandwiches, with a few alternative options 👌

Good food yet the staff were slow as they have had covid cases

Grwta cafe on the lake. Next ti the big kids play park. Pizzas and coffee plus lots of spaces for a picnic

Very long queues and not much seating left due to being the only cafe open on the day and only toasties for hot food. Still the food was great and so was the service. May be worth taking a picnic during busy times

Limited catering at Castle Howard with long queues and longer waits for drinks. Need to have larger food outlets with broader offerings.

Desperately slow service. Took 40 minutes to order 2 teas and a coffee.

We had a wonderful visit to Castle Howard, the only thing spoiling it being very heavy rain towards the end and nowhere to shelter. Our grandchildren loved the amazing playparks linked by a rope bridge and we enjoyed the beautiful grounds with a beautiful array of spectacular flowers. We enjoyed lunch at a table overlooking the lake which had lots of swans, geese and ducks with ducklings delighting the children. There were quite a few mobile food vans and a cafe and pizza place which met the need for lunch and also plenty of picnic tables. Castle Howard was so much more than we expected and if we lived in England we'd definitely get membership. As it is we got it for our son, daughter in law and children. Very highly recommended.

Lovely fresh wood fired pizza's.

Such a beautiful place, the walled garden are so pretty, and the house is striking from all areas , great play area for the children down by the lake and seating for the parents with great views , we didn't use the cafe this time but we have in the past and it had a really high standard of food on offer ... I dont think there was any part of castle Howard you wouldn't enjoy , everything was clean , just the toilets showing their age

Sadly closed due to Covid, but you can still go on the decking for bird watching. Very well set up for Covid safety.

Lovely gardens and lake, great for walking

Great cakes and good brews. Little bit cold waiting for drinks to come through the hatch but worth it .

We were not able to spend Christmas day with our family so met up with them on boxing Day at castle Howard. We enjoyed a lovely walk and had drinks at the Boathouse. So good to meet up with our family. Lots of space for social distance and we all felt safe.

Our recent visit was only to the grounds and not the house. Just from the outside, I would say the house is well worth a visit. It's so spectacular. The grounds themselves are wonderful and full of amazing and interesting things to see. Having 3 kids, we couldn't go without visiting the play area. The play area is almost as impressive as the house itself! There's so much to do for kids of all ages, and abilities. There's a few items that are great for inclusive play. The boathouse produces some great hot drinks, perfect for those cold days, and the views over the lake are beautiful! Kids can toast their on marshmallows over the fire pits. They're only a pound each and our kids loved them. Overall, I'd say Castle Howard is a great day out for all the family (including the dog!). I will add, during the pandemic, we felt the staff at Castle Howard were impeccable! Not once did we feel unsafe and there was an abundance of hand sanitiser around all public areas. Easy to get to from the A64, I would recommend Castle Howard to everyone!

Good play ground food not bad gardens really good

Star taken away because of wet chairs. Looking forward to having some sort of cover over outdoor seating area. Perhaps next year. Coffee always good and hot. Social distancing space.

Great place to visit, staff really great under pressures of the covid restrictions

Cafe area looks out over the lake and there is a large adventure playground for children. Not as much choice in snacks as stables and main house but the view makes up for it.

Disappointing! In need of refurbishment and the worst pizza I have ever had! We asked for pepperoni pizza and we got Marguerita with 5 small slices of pepperoni on it.

Love the spacious seating and the girls love an ice cream. Great day out.

Lovely coffee and cakes. Great view across the lake.

Amazing food. Homemade cakes. Lovely coffee and stunning views. Sam and the other guy were so friendly and very helpful. A credit to the place

It is lovely to sit down there on a lovely day it is relaxing taking in the scenery and watching the Swans and ducks swimming around .we are annual pass members so go there quite often Angie from York

Wonderful place,wonderful views. Well worth a visit.

Spotlessly clean, although food packaged did think the young lady on duty could have been a little more friendly and engaging, sullen faced.

Lovely place to sit & relax, decent coffee shop. Large, well equipped, children's play area nearly next door.

Lovely place for a drink and bite to eat whilst overlooking the main lake at Castle Howard. Very enjoyable 🙂

This was the only cafe we visited on our recent trip to Castle Howard. If the weather is nice, as it was for us, sitting pn the deck looking over the lake is a pleasure. If you are not so lucky with the weather then you may find that the indoor seating area is full due to there being only a limited number of tables. The coffee we had was great and the slice of giant sausage roll delicious. The cakes we had were very good,we partucularly liked the chocolate brownie. Apparently all the items we had are made on the estate and did have a homemade quality. Something that other houses run by large charities could well learn a lesson from. NT did you get that! The cafe has a large play area nearby but not to close to cause disturbance of you want to enjoy the peaceful lake. The ducks from the lake can be a bit pushy for being fed and aren’t frightened of people. Be warned if you have a feather phobia. The only niggle I had is a strange one, and that is that the door to the cafe is quite narrow. Steering a path through it with a laden tray is slightly awkward. I almost forgot to mention that we thought that the cost of our lunch was very reasonable too.

Great setting. Snacks and drinks at reasonable cost.

Good idea. However it was a little understaffed, and all the coffee people take too long. To improve they need to create two lines and have more staff. There was also not much choice for ice cream.Out of all the places I've visited the cafe and its choice is in my top 20 worse. Other than that everything else was fine

Great adventure playground. My 8 and 6 year old daughters have been coming here for at least the last 5 years. Boathouse cafe has a good selection of snacks and drink but a bit on the expensive side

Basic, coffee is bitter and choice of food is very limited. Not really worth a visit