The Yew Tree Inn

Pleasantly surprised. These gastro pubs are often disappointing with over priced menus which leave the guests hungry. Not the Yew Tree. The starter of cornish mussels followed by the steak and ale pie with mash meant we couldn't find room to sample the dessert menu. Left feeling very full, satisfied and not ripped off for a change. Planning a return visit to check out the desserts another day ! Friendly and attentive staff. A well run and welcoming establishment, perfect for an out of town night out.

Seven years ago I had the best meal of my life at this restaurant, last night I had the worst. My partner had pollock, which she enjoyed but this morning woke with a headache and nausea; I had a pork dish that featured a small, fatty chop with an uncooked sausage.

First visit to The Yew Tree but it wont be our last. Absolutely fantastic food, beautifully presented, drinks served expertly by David the barman and the friendliest service by knowledgeable staff, made a birthday celebration extra special. We stayed the night in a very comfortable cozy room and breakfast was wonderful too!

Today was my third visit to the Yew Tree Inn. My first (Mother's Day a couple of years ago) was fantastic, my second (an early date with my later-to-become wife) was also a real treat. Today, however, was a different story.

Having parked outside and held our noses as we walked from the car (I think there may have been a problem with the sewage, or a septic tank leak), we received the same formal but friendly greeting as with our previous visits before being shown through to the bar for pre-lunch drinks. Polite and courteous service at the bar and a leisurely read through some of the Sunday papers before being shown through to our table. So far so good, excepting the stench outside!

My wif'e starter (pigeon with a pear salad) was good, but I thought I'd hold out for the main attraction and ordered the roast beef, my partner opted for the lamb.

My first reaction when my meal arrived was disbelief that a chef would think it could ever be a good idea to send out a plate of food with so much fat on the beef. It really did look quite unappetising… not just mine either – I could hear similar utterings from nearby tables. Having trimmed the fat from the meat myself there wasn't a great deal of beef left, but what did remain was very tasty. I'd have ordered creamed leeks as a side dish but they had run out – the green beans which came with the meal were very good.

Not so the roast potatoes. They were just awful. Undercooked, chewy – a complete disapointment. Now I know that there are more important things in life than whether one's roast dinner is well cooked, and it's important to maintain some sense of perspective. But when someone with an exceptional reputation sees fit to open a restaurant and put their name over the door, and charges good money for a Sunday lunch, and that Sunday lunch has four ingredients on the plate – I don't think it's too much to ask for each of those four ingredients to be served to the standard that I'm sure the proprietor would expect and demand.

Comments from the tables around us varied from “it's not cooked” to “mine's overcooked”. Maybe they were having a bad day. Maybe the smell was getting to the kitchen staff too… I was facing the other way but my wife's meal was punctuated by wafts of raw sewage. Unsurprisingly nobody was sitting outside.

We mentioned to our waiter that we were disappointed with the food and we weren't charged for dessert by way of recompense. I'd happily have paid full price for a better meal.

In the interests of fairness, dessert was delicious. My wife practically licked the bowl clean upon finishing her trifle (the best ever, I am assured) and my apple crumble was also a triumph.

On balance, the roast dinner would have been better at home… so whether it was worth £25 per head (no wine, and no starter for me) to avoid washing up is a tough call.

Would I recommend the Yew Tree Inn? On today's performance, definitely not. On the previous two visits – absolutely. Would I go again to see if this was a one-off? Somehow I don't think so…

Sunday Lunch 28/02/2010
Absolutely wonderful. Having dined all over the world including top Paris restaurants like Laurent and Bergundy restaurant Le Gevry Chambertin The Yew Tree beats them all.
Maitre ‘D’ Ian Fitz-Gerald makes you so welcome with his professional unobtrusive personal service that makes you feel very special.
Whatever you have got planned make a visit to The Yew Tree high on your list of priorities.
No need to dwell on the menu or wine list as it is perfection as you would expect of MPW.
All very realistically priced.
We cannot wait until our visit for Mother's Day.
Peter & Patricia Cook,
Padbury

Superb! Treated to lunch as a birthday present and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Food was excellent and matched with a reasonably priced wine list. Having been to the French Table in Surbiton a couple of weeks before I thought the Yew Tree much the better. A pity such a drive from London but will be back in the summer for dinner and will stay over in the guest rooms.

2nd time i have been taken. very happy not having to pay. Please tell me when do you serve medium roast beef.so i had the lamb which was over done and the phesant was also well done and dried out. Will not be going again. This was once a good pub with good foood a few years back not any more.

My memory of Mirabelle’s under MPW many years ago was of a variable experience which coincides with yesterday at The Yew Tree. I’d heard hit and miss reports so kept an open mind.

Judging from the noise generated by staff, the kitchen was a far livelier place than the peaceful music-free dining area – enactment going on Marco style perhaps. Some kind of chef initiation ceremony we were told, which was not reassuring for two hungry people waiting in an otherwise empty dining space. Further off-putting, we could hear someone with a rasping cough who I hoped was nowhere near the food.

The meal was a mosaic of standards except for a starter of quail’s eggs on mushroom duxelle with a delicate coating of hollandaise – more Michelin than pub grub. Everything else was kind of OK. As pies were recommended as “the thing to have” they had to be ordered. If this was their showcase stuff, then should we be slightly worried about the other dishes I wondered, given that the steak content of mine was a little gristly, the pastry seemed a cross breed of hot-water and shortcrust and the gravy had soaked into it – not sure whether this was intentional or not. So 2/10 for thin meat juice also lacking depth of flavour. And am I out-dated with my yearning for crisp golden pie top, or is soggy the latest pastry trend – though strangely the pie wasn’t awful. A side of cauliflower cheese was not helped by vegetable water left to liaise with the sauce saved only by nicely gratinated powerful cheese. Creamed spinach had an injection of mustard that went well with the steak; peas were perfect, but chips forgettable.

We were presented with an interesting list of wines and the manager recommended a very quaffable bottle of Lebanese red called Kefraya, and this is the reason I swayed to a score of 6 (instead of 5) for food’n drink.

Not a great example of the gastro-pub and the menu could easily have lost out-of-season choices such as asparagus without detriment. Service was quite acceptable. A better standard expected for the price (& name on the door). Should they do something about acoustics too?

By rights we should have been slightly unnerved by the fact that next to our table was a picture of Marco Pierre White with Gordon Ramsay's head on a platter. Written underneath in Marco's slightly wild writing was the imprecation ‘Ramsay swims with the fishes’ .
As it happens we didn't swim with the fishes, instead we went traditional. Old fashioned. Weighty. At least I certainly was when I left.
We turned up impromptu, celebrating the joy of half term and having our childcare responsibilities reduced to just one 11 week old Daisy. We rang about 40 minutes before we arrived, and they reassured us that Daisy's presence would be no problem. And a lovely leisurely eat was had in the dining room, which had a slightly odd layout with curved banquettes and some diners sitting next to each other as opposed to opposite. Nearby was a large table of credit crunch hit executives who, like us impoverished teachers, ate off the excellent value lunch menu priced at £18.50. My wife had Eggs Benedict to start, whilst I languished in the heart stopping excess of the duck rilettes. Both were delicious, though I secretly hankered after more than the one mouthful of egg, delicious ham and wonderful, slightly piquant hollandaise which smothered them, all resting atop a morsel of ‘croustade’. But my wife is a very determined woman, and no more came my way.
I lucked out on the main, with braised pig cheeks on champ with a lovely dark jus, whilst the wife plumped for the shepherds pie, which had a little too much of Marco's love for worcester sauce registering. I have never ordered pigs cheeks before, but I will certainly be doing so again. Unctuous flaky meat, wonderful champ, with side orders of creamy spinach with (unnanounced)horseradish and buttered peas. I ate everything of course, and we were reminded of our visit to Heston Blumenthal's ‘The Hinds Head’ in Bray. Wonderful cooking, with a richness and depth of flavour which loaded the stomach in a wonderfully indulgent way. Proper cooking.
Once all was finished Daisy demanded attention in the bottom department and our very friendly waitress whisked me upstairs to a comfy leather sofa where I did the necessary. I came back to find the coup de grace resting in front of my place. Sherry Trifle, a completely heart stopping confection that contained all the right elements to make a fat man very happy. My wife had gone for this too-we both couldn't resist.
So we ended the meal likening ourselves to those two seventies deities, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy. Daisy started complaing when one of the executives next door began causing glazed and vacant expressions amongst all present as he extolled the virtue of ‘uploading to an Apple hub’ and we did the decent thing;we split the bill and left!