The beautiful Cotswolds village with just 400 residents that has 'the best pub in England'
A Georgian pub perched on a hillside in the centre of a charming Cotswolds village has been lauded as "almost certainly the best pub in England" by a top food writer. The Horse and Groom is the watering hole of Bourton-on-the-Hill in Gloucestershire, named by Savills last year as one of the country's "most desirable" villages.
New owners Nathan Eades and Liam Goff, who previously ran a critically acclaimed gastropub in Cheltenham, are said to have breathed new life into the pub. So much so, that restaurant reviewer Giles Coren of The Times, who previously gave a mixed review about the same pub in 2016, has awarded it 10 out 10 across all fields of cooking, service and location - despite the village being a hub of fewer than 400 people.
Dining out with his family, Coren said they enjoyed an 'immense' meal with starters of Atlantic prawn cocktail, monkfish scampi and Scotch egg. He hailed the double cheeseburger main course as a 'hip and sticky masterpiece of its kind' and a ham hock as akin to 'Jesus rising again on the third day', Wales Online reports.
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In 2016, The Horse and Groom was given a nod in the Good Pub Guide, but in his own review of the same year, Coren said he found the food to be 'pretty average'. Now, with Eades and Goff in charge, Coren said: "With their immense cooking bolted on to the rambling old space and fantastic gardens, [it is] almost certainly the best pub in England.
"It has not changed much inside, nor should it. It is lived-in and lovely, but on a rare warm summer's day we busted through into the two-tiered garden, with its mature trees and shrubs and shaggy lawns, and... we climbed to the high lawn and a not too guano-spattered picnic table under a tree.
"Eating outside I can take or leave. But eating under a tree - the dappled shade, the birdsong, the faint insect hum, the view over yellow stone buildings, old slate roofs, bent chimneys, cobalt skies, fields slowly browning to the harvest, all framed by a good, sharp privet hedge - that is truly living. The English rural pub is the greatest of all things on earth and the Horse and Groom is perhaps its apogee."
Coren is the son of famed journalist Alan Coren and brother of television presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell. A widely respected restaurant critic, his scores have radically improved since his 2016 review, when he gave the establishment a score of seven out of 10 for cooking, six out of 10 for table service, and a mere five out of 10 for atmosphere.
Speaking to Cotswold Journal, new owner Nathan Eades said: "We haven't made any seismic changes, all we've really done is add a new lick of paint. We have also tried to tidy it up and dump as much love into the pub as we can. Not much needed changing, to be honest.
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"We have good wine and a good environment and we have been highly encouraged by what we have seen so far. It's been a good first few days and hopefully it's only going to get better."
What's on the menu at The Horse and Groom?
Here are a few examples of a sample menu at the Horse and Groom
Starters
Atlantic prawn cocktail, buttermilk soda bread and butter, Bloody Mary sauce £11.50
Marinated Evesham tomatoes, bitter leaves, burrata, basil pesto £11.50
Monkfish scampi, saffron aioli, pickled shallot and watercress salad £11.50
24-month-old Comte and Donnington ale rarebit on OandB sourdough toast £9.50
Beef fillet carpaccio, wasabi mayonnaise, parmesan and rocket salad £11
Main courses
Double baked 24-month-old Comte cheese souffle, house salad £19
Double cheeseburger, Otis and Belle brioche bun, house fries £18
Huntsham Farm sausages, creamed potatoes, buttered cavolo nero, onion gravy £21
Glazed ham hock for two, Cacklebean eggs, house fries £19.50 pp
Desserts
Black treacle and date pudding, clotted cream £9.50
Tiramisu, our style £10.50
Lemon posset, strawberry compote, crushed meringue £10
Affogato, pistachio biscotti £7
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