The County — Restaurant in England

A silly venue with pretentions of better things to which it cannot aspire given current offerings.

Food. .. overpriced and underwhelming. Served with a wholly unnecessary clutter of silly, galvanised pseudo 'planters'. Example : chips pushed into a metal pot, peas likewise and gravy in yet another metal vessel, all served separately. When chips are crammed together in such proximity, they 'steam' each other and by the time they are extracted to the plate, they have lost any textural quality that they might otherwise have had. Why present the customer with this logistical nuisance?

Service. .. the younger staff are efficient and polite. This cannot be said of the other staff who are inappropriately familiar, addressing customers in unacceptable terms.

Environment... simply put .. uncomfortable. Plastic and shiny, strident 'wood style' tables that are out of place with the character and age of the building.

This village pub has been dragged into the bijou/gastro offering most unsuccessfully and at an undeserved price...

Haven't visited the County for some time, so as we were in the area visiting relatives we popped in. The décor is nice and the staff attentive and personable. Due to what I see as a limited menu I had the Steak Pie, I've had this before, which was really good, this time with a 40% increase in price, ie £14 I expected at least comprable with the last visit, well no, smaller corner slice, over baked, poor end of. My partner had a fish dish which was fine, my partner's desserts was poor apparently, overall poor for the money. But I must add this was very early in the evening and within an hour the place was busy, so they're obviously doing something right, maybe we just were unlucky on this occasion, well we'll not find out, as we won't be back. The County is in a nice quiet location, on what I would call the Village Green, nice for sipping a pint/Wine in the evening, shame...

Fantastic culinary experience……… My wife and I, along with our dear friends visited The County restaurant, 13 The Green, Aycliffe Village, County Durham today, Saturday the 19th of March (2022). As soon as we walked in we were warmly greeted by a lovely waitress/ hostess called Claire. She showed us to our table , gave us some menus and took our drinks order. We all chose different starters and mains. Kieran, our waiter, brought our meals and we were not disappointed. Why?, because:

1. The food was well presented
2. The plates were red hot
3. The food was piping hot
4. The food was excellent, tasty and plentiful
5. The waiter/waitress ( Claire and Kieran) were super friendly, polite and professional, nothing was too much trouble.
6. The pub/restaurant was spotless, warm and inviting. A truly fantastic culinary experience. Well done to all at The...