- 整體 5
- 食物 4
- 服務 4
- 氛圍 5
Dinner, Sat night, five of us, in one of about five different dining areas in this higgledepiggly 16 cent inn, with its ancient egon ronay and AA plates round the porch betraying a succession of owners each leaving a legacy: there's an eightiesish conference-roomey space, a sixtiesish dining room with bright ceiling lights, high backed settles and a fake fire; or a 16 century bar with loads of nooks (and standing locals), and a cavernous log fire all connected by a patterned carpeted floor so uneven you'd think you'd been drinking since noon...and the gothic 'mind your head' signage beloved by copper kettle tea rooms in cathedral towns... but the folk running this now (after a long series of owners including real Basil Fawlties) know exactly what they're doing, so: a board of sourdough with oil and balsamic (never enough, of course) as we scanned the shrewdly condensed menu (4 starters, 4 mains, no main over £20 and no need for sides) of which we all had roughly one of everything and all was pretty impeccable, both cooking and presentation: whipped cods roe with airy sourdough slices; rillettes (so-so, they usually are), a luscious, glutinous ox cheek stew with bricks of perfect dauphinoise; what they describe as chalk stream trout was a perfectly cooked pink steak-size cross-section of fish in a creamy lagoon of tiny veg, raved about, all followed by panna cottas and creme brulees and a bill that was - if you take off my extravagant buy of a vintage bin-end - about £46 pp. We waddled out stuffed and happy and didn't trip up on the ancient cobbled pavement.