Swan at Southrop

Food and drink: 10 / 10.
Service: 9 / 10.
Atmosphere: 9 / 10.
Value for money: 10 / 10.
 

What do you reckon, then?” said Fi, in true Come Dine With Me-style when we’d finished eating at the perfectly polished oval table by the fire.

“Ten out of 10,” pronounced Leonie, emphatically.

She’d just polished off a coral-pink minute steak of salmon with roasted tomatoes, crab and samphire, and almost a whole bowl of garlic roasties.

It was an undeniably ambitious start to the scoring – but not un-typical as it turned out.

I gave my artichoke tempura with an obscenely garlicky saffron alioli nine-and-a-half.

The crab tart, light and warm and silky, got a nine – one point deducted for overcooked pastry.

Fi’s bruschetta with lemony, chargrilled asparagus and a just-right poached egg got an 9.5, her salad with blue cheese and creamy avocado a nine.

“Mine gets an eight,” said Cala. Hush descended on the table – probably for the first time that night. An eight was unthinkable. We waited.

“Only because it was quite, well, manly,” she said carefully.

She is 13, and a slip of a thing. And to be fair, she had just eaten an enormous Cotswold rib-eye steak with a little copper skillet of beurre maitre d’hotel and nine, enormous thrice-cooked chips.

It was like Jenga, on a dainty wooden board. We could see where she was coming from.

“It was lush though,” she said quickly. “Tomorrow I think I’m going to have the confit of girly goose leg.”

I should say, we’re not usually this lairy: it’s just that we sisters and the children hadn’t seen each other for ages. And it was Friday night.

And we had taken advantage of a particularly splendid Sauvignon Blanc.

We were in Southrop for a rare family weekend, so naturally headed to the pub.

Since Lana and Sebastian Snow – they of iconic London restaurant Snows On The Green – took over, this creeper-clad pub has become a must-eat destination for anyone who knows anything about food.

It might be Kate Moss’ local. And Gary Barlow might be propping up the bar with a pint of the pub’s own Swan Ale.

And it might well be full of yellow cord-wearing Cotswoldians, and immaculate yummy mummies, and chaps wearing suede loafers. But this place isn’t about the glitz and glamour of celebrity, or your Rich List rating.

It’s about really, really, really good food and a cosy, come-on-in ambience.

So much so, if you don’t book ahead, you’ll be lucky to get a table on a Friday or Saturday night.

Inside, it’s country chic: Moroccan cushions sit on church pews; tiny tables for two nestle underneath little windows; there are polished mahogany tables and old pine chairs and modern art.

Even the old skittle alley, with fairy lights twinkling among the logs in the cavernous fireplace, has been turned into a private dining room, or an overspill from the restaurant at weekends.

Sebastian’s menus are eclectic and interesting and brave. And local.

When we were there, we found rack of Southrop lamb from the estate just up the road, smoked eel caught, no doubt, in the river nearby and wild venison shot in the Cotswolds.

Among the bewildering array of dishes, you’ll find braised ox cheek, poached ox tongue and snails.

This is to pub food what Petrus is to plonk. It’s incomparable, and beware: one night is never enough.

On night two, we were in danger of straight 10s, so we gave up with the scoring.

The belly pork is Sebastian’s signature dish – a crisp, comforting confit of middle white with smoky artichokes and mushrooms and confit potatoes.

My venison, too, was extraordinary, rose pink with the sweetest of caramelised apples, a pile of peppery bubble and squeak with pickled beetroot and horseradish.

The 10-out-of-10 salmon made its second appearance of the weekend, and the carpaccio of tuna, with its zingy lime, ginger and coriander dressing and creamy avocado was a triumph – dainty enough for Cala, whose goose with blood oranges and chestnuts was a feast of gamey loveliness.

Only the oiliness of my broad bean gratin, with its perfectly crispy pancetta and Cerney goat’s cheese, let the side down. But another glass of Sauvignon pacified me.

It was when we were walking home, looking up at the stars on a clear Cotswold night, that Fi said it.

“That, undoubtedly, was the most extraordinary food I’ve tasted this year.”

And if you knew what I know she knows, you’d know that was quite something.

On Wednesday 21st September, 2011 Jonathan Scarfe of Field, Morris and Verdin joined us for our second winemaker’s dinner in association with Vin-Est wine merchants of Lechlade.

Read more about the Winemaker's Dinner here »