Pleasant restaurant in the market town of Cirencester

This is a lovely looking restaurant in Cirencester, surrounded by the glorious Cotswolds and one of few places within Cirencester to be in the Michelin guide as a plated recommendation and with AA rosettes. I felt that for the quality line of the food, the menu could have been a set menu rather than a la carte and it was a little steep at £36 for the three courses (no drinks) including service. A lovely place, but each dish could have been tightened.

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My three-course lunch offer was cheese soufflé to start which was dense and cold in middle but caramelised walnuts with apple and cheese was a very nice combination. Basically below the quality line though.

The burger came with a seeded brioche bun, emmental cheese, red cabbage slaw, dressed leaves, club sauce and side chips. It was good that the burger was genuinely homemade but sadly the beef bled through the brioche which ended up being a little soggy so perhaps could have been rested a tad longer. The bun was nice, the beef a little bland but this was salvaged by the club sauce – American mustard and ketchup combined.

Duck egg tart was served cold and whilst a good touch to have duck eggs for the richness, the pastry was too thick and the flavour of tart was hard to detect. I didn’t think the clotted cream was necessary either as the tart so inherently rich from the duck egg and personally I would have served this warm, with the lovely, wobbly, flavoursome, filling with a thinner pastry.

So a filling lunch no question, but as every course needed some fine-tuning, it’s hard to have felt brilliant about the visit.

Food Grade: 54%