So the new darling of Brackenbury village has had a bad hair day.
Same cool setting, same friendly service. Same lovely sounding Italian menu. But the food not up to scratch.
The oak has taken the area by storm with its perfect pizzas. And I've had a few of them. But last fri I took the boy there for dinner. 2 courses, £16 if you order before 7pm. Sounds like a bargain for this place. Trouble is, we found out to our disappointment, this didn't include pizzas. Oh well, plenty of other delicious stuff on the menu, so at 6.59 we ordered one stonebass carpaccio and one grilled octopus followed by a grilled chicken and a nettle tortellini in tomato sauce.
The stone bass was plain odd. I was expecting something raw. But the plate was so hot that the slices had cooked through. I checked the boy's plate to see if it was also that hot. It wasn't, so I presume this was a clever trick of the dish, to cook the carpaccio through. But it just made it a bit horrible and the warmth certainly didn't go with the nice fresh dressing.
The octopus was tasty but (and this is a common theme) there just isn't enough of it. Loads of frizzy salad. A few tiny chunks of octupus. £9. No bargain.
My main was another mean affair. A dry chicken breast with some interesting vegetables. The breast was so small it would have taken a chef of some considerable skill not to dry it out to be fair. The veg was lovely and I hadn't come across it before but it was doing a good job of hiding under the teeny breast which says much about the size of the dish. Don't get me wrong I'm not after bucketfuls of bad food. But there was simply no generosity in this at all and the price is listed as £16. Had I paid that I would have been gutted. In fact I felt the £16 I did pay for the two courses was no sort of bargain even at the discounted price. The boy's tortellini was good. But a little mean.
Locals all report this place to be nice but way pricey. I've been happy to pay £3 more for their delicious pizza. But the food elsewhere on the menu is simply not well enough executed or plentiful enough to justify the prices they charge. So this is not the place if you're looking for value.
Bang the prices down a few quid or notch up the generosity or this place will fall foul of the many excellent establishments round these parts. read more