Food 2019 – The Muddy Duck, Hethe

Saturday, 20th April 2019 – The Muddy Duck, Hethe Following on from a theatre trip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the sublime Kunene and the King at the Swan Theatre, and unhappy to remain in the town on a sunny holiday weekend when you could barely move for the crowds everywhere, we headed cross country towards…

Food 2019 – The White Hart, Preston Bissett

Saturday, 23rd March 2019 – The White Hart, Preston Bissett This was a bit of an unexpected one. The White Hart had popped up on my social media radar with a friend request, and while I didn’t know exactly who they were (or for that matter precisely where Preston Bissett was, though the postcode suggested…

Food 2018 – The White Horse, Kings Sutton

Monday, 24th December 2018 – The White Horse, Kings Sutton We stumbled upon the White Horse purely by chance when visiting a bunch of places that were shortlisted for the local food and drink awards, but didn’t visit it because it wasn’t among the places we’d been asked to review. It did sound interesting though,…

Food 2018 – Bar Encore, Towcester

Saturday, 17th November/11th December 2018 – Bar Encore, Towcester After a couple of slightly rocky visits to Bar Encore when I’d repeatedly had to teach the cocktail barman how to make a caipirinha (and the answer is not the way he was making it with syrup and lime juice – but I digress and to…

Food 2018 – White Horse, Kings Sutton

Saturday, October 20th 2018 – The White Horse, Kings Sutton With the increasing shortage of quality restaurants in our area, every so often we strike it lucky, and find a gem. Now that the Roade House, the Vine House and Cameron’s Kitchen are all gone, we need a high-ish end establishment for the more special…

Food 2018 – The Plough, Shutlanger

Saturday, 1st September 2018 – The Plough, Shutlanger For a while we’d been having to avoid the Plough, simply because it was proving too hard to get there, the main route being closed for bridge repairs. As a result we would have had to drive the long way round, doubling the distance and the journey…

Food 2018 – The Butcher’s Arms, Greens Norton

Saturday, 18th August 2018 – The Butcher’s Arms, Greens Norton Greens Norton is probably the nearest village to where we live, and the local pub seems to have gone through some interesting times of late, changing hands more than once, before finally being bought by a consortium of villagers, who are now running it as…

Food 2018 – The Crown Inn, Weston

Saturday, August 11th 2018 – The Crown Inn, Weston On a cold, damp Saturday evening (and wasn’t that a shock after the summer it’s been so far) we found our way to the Crown Inn in the tiny, tiny village of Weston, just north of Silverstone. Weston is not exactly famous, with the extent of…

Food 2018 – The Red House, Marsh Benham

Sunday, August 5th 2018 – The Red House, Marsh Benham Back in the late 1980s, towards the end of my first decade as a wage slave, I worked for a company that moved its offices from Bromley, in south London, to Aldermaston, in the middle of nowhere, and thus ended up buying a house in…

Food 2018 – The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Little Bedwyn

Saturday, August 4th 2018 – The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire Little Bedwyn is a very tiny village (also spelled Little Bedwin, and also known as Bedwyn Parva), with a population of 250 at the last count. It also has an Iron Age hill fort (Chisbury Camp), a decorated Gothic former chapel (St Martin’s) and…