‘It yearns for gastropub glory… but doesn’t deliver’

The Bailiwick, Egham

So there I am at The Bailiwick Free House, on the edge of Windsor Great Park, spitting out Jasper’s food. I’m spitting it out because he spat it out. It’s not that I don’t trust Jasper, but he’s a loquacious artist whose rambling chatter, if transcribed, would make a subeditor weep, so I needed to be sure.

And sure enough, even my well-exercised molars couldn’t masticate the meat enough to avert the risk of fatal choking if swallowed. So back it went to the kitchen; more on which shortly. We were nestled into a comfortable corner of this building, built in 1877, presumably as a lodge – what with it being right next to the park gates – and which has been variously a pub and a shop over the years. Now it yearns for gastropub glory with smartly dressed and excellent serving staff, and a menu that focuses on game, specifically venison culled from the park.

The decor attempts at a clubby hunting lodge chic with leather-upholstered chairs with bronze beading, similar large armchairs and banquettes with animal-skin throws. Except the panelling and wall colours feel a bit off-theshelf and the paintings are dire.

We were shown first to a table by a bay window. But with our backs to the room the feng shui was awkward; OK, so we would see the invaders approach the front door but we’d have no chance if someone snuck up behind us with an axe.

We plunged in with crispy buffalo hot wings and they were sticky and a little hot and (authentically) rather horrible, outshone by my deep-fried choice of venison bon bons which were crisp and tasty, if slightly under-seasoned.

Then we shared a Scotch egg (dwarfed by the huge plate it came on), sitting on some white sauce. I’d failed to read the smallprint, having only really noticed the words ‘Scotch egg’, so I missed the preamble of ‘Cheese & onion’. In fact, this was an egg surrounded by potato in breadcrumbs. No hint of cheese or onion in either egg or sauce, but I did notice ‘smoked haddock Scotch egg’ on the à la carte menu offered in the evening, so perhaps this was that, which would make it a fishcake, not that there was a hint of fish. Anyhow, it wasn’t a Scotch egg, which is made with sausage meat (or at a stretch black pudding, allowable as it’s a sort of sausage).

I then had mussels which came with onions cut so thick you couldn’t eat them, a paltry amount of sauce and some thick little slices of bread that were either stale or deliberately crafted as mummified sponge. There was some very fine, al dente Tenderstem broccoli on the side.

At which point back comes our delightful waitress who had returned that steak with the news that ‘chef says it’s a bavette’. This was an interesting riposte as the menu advertised it as a picanha. Regardless, it was still quite surprising that the message seemed to be, ‘it’s supposed to be inedible’. A further travesty was the temptation on the menu of ‘chimichurri butter’; it came cold and it wasn’t hot enough to melt it, so there was poor Jasper spreading it on his meat.

His replacement was a roe deer kebab; a lonely turd of a thing sitting on a fat shock of globby flatbread showered in vulgar squirts of mayo and chilli sauce. He pushed it round the plate and almost yelped in disappointment.

Pud was a millefeuille. Except it wasn’t. It was a decent apple terrine in a puff-pastry sandwich. I get the aim of the Bailiwick but the sights on the delivery need adjusting.

It was quite surprising that the message from the chef seemed to be, ‘it’s supposed to be inedible’