Telephone: 01285 740 421
Lunch for two, including drinks and service, £60
Hate me if you like, but if there is one vehicle I do not wish to see in a restaurant car park it is a minibus from a residential care home for the elderly. This is not merely ageist prejudice. Some of my closest family members are, whisper it, older people. Nor is it based on an assumption that age leads naturally, in matters of taste, to conservatism. It is more physiological than that: the fact is that if, much to your fury, you are in a residential care home, and even putting on your socks is a monumental struggle, then the odds are that the digestive system just ain't what it used to be. Nothing too acidic, please. Careful with the garlic. And easy on the chilli.
There was just such a minibus outside the Village Pub in Barnsley, parked alongside the serried ranks of Mercedes. A quick explanation: this is Barnsley in Gloucestershire rather than South Yorkshire. And that really is the name of the hostelry, a fine lump of honey-coloured Cotswold brickwork outside, with an interior of flagstone floors and bold coloured walls. It suggests a no-nonsense approach.
And, indeed, there are a number of solid, reassuring dishes on offer here - leek and potato soup, for example, or liver and bacon. But that only tells part of the story for the menu, which changes twice daily, walks a careful line between the familiar and the less so, with much success. It is also good value, with two courses available for £12.50 the day we went. That leek and potato soup, tried by my companion Josh, was a sturdy piece of work with a velvety potato smoothness and a good depth of leeky flavour. I tried something from the more outré end of the operation, a bowl of mussels with black beans and coriander in a light and piquant stock. The molluscs were, to a shell, substantial creatures, deserving of the fiddle to get at them. My main course - pot roast rabbit with split peas, chorizo, fennel, saffron and basil - sounded more complex than it really was, because all the ingredients, bar the principle, formed a light, punchy stew in which the tender bunny happily sat without being overwhelmed. For his main course, Josh ordered roast cod with mash, clams and parsley (it's a classic combination even if, I confess, I prefer the neglected cockle to the clam) - and here boasted proper mash. The kitchen skills were most obvious in that slab of glistening fish.
To finish, Josh ordered a slice of warm ricotta cheese and lemon tart, the ingredients seemingly lying in delicate layers so that the flavours followed one after the other. The only down note was a coffee and orange crème brûlée. Repeat after me: never bugger about with a classic crème brûlée. The flavourings here did nothing for the crème and the topping was far too heavy on the sugar so that a granulated layer remained beneath the heavy shell.
On the plus side, the Village Pub gets top marks for an inventive wine list, arranged by the weight of the wines, with prices starting at £10.95 a bottle, and at least 20 choices by the glass.
In truth, the Village Pub isn't really anything of the sort. Sure, you can get beer but there's waiter service at the tables, mostly by cheery, if slightly distracted Australians, and the whole place seemed to be given over to the food side of the business. But when it's all as accomplished as this who really cares what it is? The time has come, I think, for me to dump suspicion of residential care home minibuses. Their occupants clearly know a good thing when they see it.
