I've just visited The Whitegate Inn, this pub is part of the Beefeater chain and having had a positive experience at two other pubs in the Beefeater chain previously (one in Kent and one in Hereford) I decided to give it ago as a midweek meal.
This is a large pub where the restaurant is separate to the rest of the pub, normally a lot of pubs of this size have started to look a little shabby around the edges where the brewery have not spent on the up keep, however here is not the case.
I did not have chance to fully explore the building, in fact I was only really in the main restaurant, but it was obvious that it has had an extensive makeover in recent years which gave the place a more contemporary feel, which belies its traditional exterior.
I find that Beefeater as an organisation sits definitely above your average chain pub, if they could forgive me the comparison I would say they are more of a Gourmet Weatherspoons.
Their prices of course do reflect this, in some cases I find it slightly more expensive that similar food at other pubs, in fact its best to think of the food side of the business as a restaurant and not a pub, if you look at it this way then the prices are about average.
The good news is the food does taste good, you can tell that it's not lovingly home made, but in my experience there is a consistent quality to the food.
The vegetarian options are not as well catered for as meat lovers, but what is on offer is well put together. I often enjoy meat in some form or other in most restaurants I visit and I have to say that the steaks and gammon here are well cooked and their chips are the some of the tastiest I've had for a while so they do fulfil traditional pub grub needs very well.
When we arrived we were greeted by a very friendly young man who I assume was some kind of head waiter, he sat us at our table, told us who our waitress would be and even took our drinks order which was good.
He didn't point out that we were still in time for the early diner option and only left us with one menu with the early diner options on (we were a table of 4) but I can forgive him that.
The early diner here is a good option if you want to try the food out for a first experience, there is a good arrange of mains to choose from and at the time of writing this you can have two courses for £8.99 as long as you eat before 6:30 Monday to Saturday.
We had an enjoyable evening with the only let down being our waitress who had little or no personality, she didn't want to spend any more time with us than it took to drop our plates off and pick them up.
We were not asked if everything was OK with our food nor were we asked if we need anything more to drink or require anything else at any point and for some strange reason we had pepper pot but no salt on the table.
I think one issue for Beefeater is they have styled their venues and priced their menus at Restaurant levels, but they still feel like more of a nice pub than a nice restaurant. They lack a special ambiance that comes with a good restaurant and judging by our waitress, perhaps not all of the staff has moved with this new business model.
To be honest I think we were unlucky with our waitress, I'll chalk it up to her just having a bad day it wasn't a major disappointment to our experience.
That said I've now come away from three different Beefeaters having enjoyed my food each time (especially the warm chocolate brownie desert) and I would definitely go back again and would be happy to recommend The Whitegate Inn. read more