This spacious pub is decorated with a few antique/repro bits and bobs, school desks, leather chairs, shelves of books, stags head etc, done in a restrained, intelligent (corporate) manner - 'cosy with a little wit' rather than tooo manipulative ('look, look, it's not just a pub, it's a lifestyle. You are cool, we are cool - look at all the fun props') or just plain shit ('I don't know Barry, I guess we'll just glue stacks of second-hand books on shelves and in alcoves inexplicably above head-height. That ought to do it').
I digress. It's a nice place to hang out.
Buzzy at night and of course when sports are on. On quiet daytimes it's pleasantly open, light and airy. Smart garden with decking, lots of sheltered seating and a ping-pong table. On sunny weekends there's a barbecue counter on the go out there, with a whole extra 'from the grill' menu available. There are also three barbecues for hire for folk without a garden, which I thought was a good idea, and they advertise a quiz night, movie night and occasional live acoustic music nights.
Above average food, but only just (on a spectrum of pubs that do food, not including gastropubs, and in recognition that oh so many pubs do underwhelming nosh). The menu is actually quite impressive to read, but both things I've had haven't been anything special. I've had a tasty enough steak and chips (beautifully presented on a wooden board but the meat was a bit cheap and over-salted) and a veggie roast dinner.
The veggie roast looked gorgeous, and the roast butternut squash and the mushroom wellington were delicious. The roast potatoes were a bit chewy (we were eating late so I expect they had been sat around a while) and the cauliflower cheese needed more cheese, but that's me being really picky. Hark at that selection - it was a multitude of veggie noms on a plate. The only very sad thing was the 'gravy'. It was really wet and really tasteless. I can only presume that it was gravy granules that had accidentally been over-diluted with cooking water from the cauliflower. Yuck.
What could have brought all the lovely components together instead made them swill a bit on the plate as if they had been dropped into a sink of washing up water, fished out, and plated up. It has potential though, so I'd try it again. Maybe the chef was having a bad afternoon. My partner was happy with his beef version.
I can't help but judge food closely, but I mustn't end on a downer. It's a good pub. read more