Definitely no longer five star!

We expected a really busy, buzzing atmosphere and were a little surprised to find the pub empty except for one other party. Yes there is a recession on; however, people, still eat and eat well, which is what we tried to do.

Despite the surreptitious and initially unexplained substitution of a green salad for a tomato and onion one, our mains were good, as was the service, albeit a little pricey relative to other gastro pubs on the one hand and high street brassieres on the other.

We declined dessert, apart from coffees and a cheeseboard. Where our main courses had certainly been if not superlative then certainly enjoyable in both qualitative and quantitative terms, unfortunately the cheeseboard was somewhat lacking, particularly in the latter quality. I remarked on this to the waitress and was told that ‘it was only for one person’; all things are relevant and doubtless this is true in some circles, but not in mine, or I believe most; one piece was thinner than a well known after dinner mint.

Before the cheese course it is quite probable that we would have made at least one return visit; on leaving and without any real discussion we were all firmly convinced that we would not be.