Forever England (ish)

PAUL STAMMERS discovers a traditional English pub that’s prepared to cater for all tastes... including Churchill’s.

PORTRAIT of Winston Churchill on the wall? Check. Hunting horn? Check. Indonesian salad? Hang on. Surely this is the sort of place that doesn’t serve fancy foreign food?

The three-star Kingswell Hotel, on the outskirts of Harwell, appears to have been given a contemporary slant.

Even the Sunday lunch menu includes Thai chicken and Scandinavian-style gravad lax.

What with continental staff, maps of French wine regions amid the pink decor, and a curious typeface on the menus (featuring upper and lower cases together, so ‘salad’ is ‘sAlaD’) the restaurant might be described as cosmopolitan.

But it still has a traditional look – gutting the 16th century oak-beamed restaurant to make way for brushed aluminium wouldn’t be a good move – and diners who are keen on old favourites such as liver with bacon and onions, or fish and chips, will find what they’re after.

WHAT DID YOU HAVE?

We spent some a while mulling over our choices, especially given the presence of a July specials board which advertised lobster with Parmesan mousse.

But after pondering the tenderloin of Oxfordshire pork wrapped in Serrano ham on a flageolet bean and spinach ragout, I switched to the sticky beef with ‘Indonesian influenced’ salad, while my fiancée decided on confit of duck with sweet potato mash (or ‘hash’ as it was described, for some reason).

For starters we requested wild rabbit terrine with “lightly spiced” apple and walnut chutney for me and roast scallops and black pudding presented on mash with garlic and parsley cream for my other half.

Lightly spiced? The chutney was as tangy as a curry – no bad thing, as the terrine was as firm and gamey as I’d hoped, and needed a strong accompaniment.

The sticky beef – hunks of slow-cooked meat braised in red wine – was matched by a juicy salad that included mango, chilli and mint.

While my fiancée thought her scallops were delicately flavoured, she was particularly happy with the duck, which proved to have more meat on it than most.

So often this is a dish that disappoints – once you’ve tackled the fat and disregarded the bone, it’s a paltry if succulent affair. The wines available by the glass – Argentinian Shiraz/Malbec for me, Italian merlot for her – were excellent.

PRETTY GOOD SO FAR, THEN.

Indeed, and no complaints on the service front – friendly and efficient, without being intrusive.

We were interested to see the hotel owners chatting at table with some of the diners – it turns out there’s a strong repeat customer base here, although the place does a good trade with business travellers as well as villagers.

Turning our attention to the dessert menu, we both thought that while appetising, it seemed as if a little modernising might be in order – although we noted that items were flagged up if they were gluten-free (apparently the Kingswell is listed by coeliac groups as a reliable place to eat).

With our starters and mains, we’d asked in advance which were suitable.

Cheesecake; summer pudding; sticky toffee pudding; treacle sponge pudding with custard – this was a corner of the Kingswell that would be forever England.

Well, apart from the crème brulee and waffles with banana.

Amy managed to polish off the chocolate nemesis, a rich slab of tart, while I savoured the roast peaches with ice cream, knowing it was what Churchill would have wanted.

MENU PRICES Starters: £5-£11, mains: £9.50-20, desserts: £5.50. There’s an £8.50 two-course special, Monday to Saturday, 12-2pm and 6-7pm.