The Box Tree Restaurant, Coffee Lounge

We came here on Christmas eve for my wife's birthday. The meal was pretty good, but pretty good doesn't cut it when you're paying £400 for a meal and wine. Let start with the good bits. The scallop + parsnip puree was divine. The soufle for désert was good also but unsuprising and a little plain. The bread was salty and sweet and was complimented perfectly by a trio of butters. I was unimpressed by the menu in general, nothing that exciting or interesting. We had a box tree 'christmas pudding' which consisted of some Luke warm brandy cream with some puffed rice. The main was a Christmas dinner which was nice, but not anything special. I think there is a hard cap on how good a Christmas day roast can be, and would have expected this to be at that cap. It was not. Had we paid 1/4 of the price that we did I would give the meal 5 stars. However, we didn't and at a restaurant with the box trees reputation I expected a memorable evening that I would want to tell people about, instead I felt obliged to write this review in the hope that other locals don't feel the need to try the box tree, as there are many other better restaurants in Ilkley (in my opinion).