Yattendon Restaurant Guide

“Excellent pub with rooms with a superb restaurant, serving delicious food” that “shows influences from the Mediterranean to the Middle East and beyond”. “They’re the bunch who have taken over the nearby Pot Kiln gastropub, so we were bumped into the hotel… but it was a pleasant bump – great food, reasonably priced and welcoming service/surroundings”.

Reopened in June 2024 (after our diners’ poll had concluded), this well-known inn (Kate Middleton’s favourite back in the day) has been relaunched under new management and after a £750,000 refit with seven rooms for accommodation. Gone are the days of its traditional British menu: Nick Galer and his team now present Basque-influenced dishes, including tapas and cured meats, and the interior has been significantly changed, incorporating a charcoal-fired grill at the centre of a big open kitchen. There’s still a separate bar and big outside area; and they still run their popular weekly pizza nights (now on Sundays) when they fire up the big oven in the garden.

2022 Review: “This superb gastropub” – an eighteenth-century inn “two minutes from the Thames and convenient for London day-trippers” – serves “interesting food with some high gastronomy”: “all produce is locally sourced, and bread made and butter churned in-house”. Husband-and-wife patrons Nick & Mary Galer (both ex-Fat Duck Group) “clearly care about what they do and look after their diners”. Ratings dropped a notch this year amid reports of “the odd off note” – possibly they “need a bit more practice after lockdown”.