The Old Pharmacy — Restaurant in England

What an experience!! I booked a table on-line having viewed the impressive reviews & stunning instagram photographs & looked at the sample menus. Also the on line booking offered dietary preferences & I was visiting with a vegan friend, I ticked vegan. On arrival I was greeted with indifference 'go through & choose your own table'. I did only to find that the young waitress could not balance the table with any amount of knapkins stuffed under the base, this happens with old buildings, but you would have thought by now they would be used to dealing with the issue. They weren't. I moved table, whilst waiting for my friend. A young woman arrived singing her heart out, obviously know to the staff, she was supplied with a salad menu, that did not appear to be on the standard menu, which was on a chalk board & offered far from the on line tempting dishes. When we asked about the wine the young waitress had no idea other than to say that all the wines were nice? When we asked what the vegan options were, we were told by the sweet but hapless young waitress that there was baguette and butter! We asked if the chef could make a small vegan plate out of what was on the menu only to be told by the manager, that the kitchen was too small to do this! Despite the display of fresh produce! There was only one other table & she already had a salad that was not on the menu! We said we would pay for the wine & leave. The bill arrived with a service charge!! I stated that I was not paying a service charge & the manager came over to explain that the restaurants fine dinning could not cope with an online request for a vegan meal made a day in advance, [I booked 3 days in advance], he pontificated on how special the restaurant menu was, even when I pointed out that a vegan meal could be cobbled together with some of the choices that were on offer. My views are that this restaurant is so limited in experience that they can't deal with a simple meal, the menu is expensive, pretentious & culinary illiterate, in terms of if you ask the staff what is in the meal they have no idea, the other suggestion to my vegan friend was a 'Sea- Bass main menu'! The manager seemed to have limited understanding of the fact that people come out for a meal because they have made time, effort, researched it & God forbid want a modicum of service. I don't mind paying for an experience but this is not one I would waste my time on - not to mention that perhaps one of the staff might want to get a duster or a hoover out once in a whlie. I am sorry if this review seems harsh - But talk about the Emperors New Clothes! We nipped up the road to find The Chapel restaurant packed to the rafters, they sent us to a cute little place The Hive up the road, which is a type of fish and chip bar, I had the most beautiful smoked salmon with the best poached eggs served with...

We had high hopes for our meal here as it had been recommended. A charming space and our evening began well. We asked to be moved from sitting side by side in the window to a table and this was done readily, pleasantly and politely. I asked for fewer potatoes and more greens on a main fish dish and I was told that would be no problem. It wasn’t explained to us that plates described as “mains” wouldn’t necessarily be served at the same time. Had we known we would have ordered sharing plates throughout. After our first course we asked for the wine list again to choose glasses for our main course and were left alone for some minutes during which time my fish dish arrived laden with potatoes and very little greens despite my request. As we didn’t know that our other main dish wasn’t about to arrive I waited expecting a minute or two’s delay. After 5 minutes or more we still didn’t have our other plate or a waiter to give a wine order to. When we waved our waiter over he was flustered and rather unapologetically said that plates came out in no particular order and “it was very busy” as if that should make it alright. We did notice some conversation between the kitchen and the waiting staff which appeared to suggest that orders hadn’t been picked up or delivered between kitchen and front of house. It certainly was very busy. Our other main did arrive when I was more than half way through mine and the wine too, but our waiter’s manner took the edge off things and rather spoilt the evening . When our waiter asked us if everything had been alright we did say that my fish had been cold and he simply walked away appearing irritated. We are not natural complainers and very appreciative of the pressures of running a good restaurant but on this occasion we felt rather left and then resented when we explained that things hadn’t entirely worked. We didn’t see our waiter again and we explained to another staff member as we paid what hadn’t worked for us and she was very appropriate, although we weren’t offered anything as a gesture. We were on holiday and had identified this restaurant for a good dining experience but the evening was rather spoilt by the service, which is sad because the food was very good. More staff or fewer diners would probably help. A shame as we had really looked forward to...

The Old Pharmacy.. TOP! Geddit?

We ‘booked’ late and ended up with the tiny table in the kitchen. RESULT!! FIRST UP, we are more Guardian than Times. More Jay Rayner than AAG or ‘our old MO’L’.

This is exceptionally crafted, thoughtful food. The head chef we’d met preparing the pasta earlier impressed with his menu choices, but in his absence but a superb small team were knocking out dishes to a full room of diners to our stage right. There were no complaints. From anyone, anywhere.

At our table there were moans and sharp inhalations, but all in reaction to tippiddytop tucker.

Nothing deserved passing over, though the shaved fennel and Buffalo burrata with mint was, for me, the least memorable dish.

The sourdough bread was DREAMY… don’t miss out on that.

The lentil and roasted artichoke was SUPERB! Leek vinaigrette was top too. The chicken lasagna needed seasoning but tastes differ on that... The beef shin ragú too.

But both were a delight to engage with... our plates were left scraped clean.

Great food, and lovely efficient and personable service.

Then there’s the wine. My recommend - Go cheapest on the reds-by-the-glass. A STUNNING Ventoux AOP. Also a lovely Trebianno. Clearly there’s a palate-and-a-half informing both the food and wine here, and, if you get a table, taste the flavours of the relationship chemistry of the kitchen - ALWAYS a marker for sustained excellence. Being in the kitchen enhanced our experience massively.

All we could say is that tonight’s tucker was...