Stopped off on a Monday evening, which for Shrewsbury was a good result to find somewhere open, given that most places seem to close on Mondays

The staff were attentive, but it was fairly quiet so that was really to be expected

The menu reads wonderfully, we spent a long while looking through and a lot of things stood out. We were only stopping for a light meal so opted for scotch egg, ham hock and pistachio nuggets and a cheeseboard. We had already earmarked some other things for a return visit

Unfortunately the food itself didn't live up to the excitement of the menu. It wasn't bad in any way, but it was very lacklustre

The scotch egg was quite tasty, but the meat had been skimped on, so the ratio of egg to meat was off. The salad was a bit lazy, a couple of lettuce leaves and a spoon of carrot chutney really let it down. The chutney is great, you can pick it up from the farmers market in the square in Shrewsbury, but with a scotch egg? I'm not convinced. Really I'm expecting a home made ketchup, maybe some potato straws, something with a bit more effort

The ham hock nuggets were also quite tasty, not as exciting as I had hoped, the pistachio didn't really shine through. They came with a disproportionately large amount of blue cheese dip, which was cheesy, but it didn't have a strong blue cheese flavour. Somehow not quite right

The cheeseboard comes in at £10 and was probably the most disappointing element. As you can see from the picture, there was a lot of ancillary things, chutney, grapes, malt loaf, jelly etc but not a lot of actual cheese! The balance was completely off, there should have been at least 50% more cheese and less other 'stuff' The menu mentioned fruit loaf, but this looked and tasted like a malt loaf. Like Doreen, I like a slice of Soreen, but not with cheese. That was just weird and felt like more plate filler to distract from the lack of cheese

Overall, it wasn't a bad experience, it was reasonably tasty but not special. The initial excitement we had at the menu now seems misplaced and our planned return has been forgotten about. Somehow they have made this independent restaurant, using local ingredients feel like a chain restaurant. A truly weird feat to pull off

With a bit more attention to detail this could be a great place, but right now you are basically paying a bit too much for 'nice enough' when you should be getting something a bit more special