Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Quality’s the name of the game for the shooting season diners
FOR a fleeting moment I thought my friend had brought his own lunch with him. With his flat cap and Derby Tweed shooting jacket, he certainly walked into the bar of The Kingham Plough dressed for action. All that was missing was the smoking shotgun and brace of game birds dangling from his poacher’s pocket.
There’s nothing quite like the prospect of a Cotswold lunch during the game season to whet the appetite but it’s so hard to find game birds on the menu these days that you need a search party more than a shooting party.
And so you can imagine our delight when we were handed a separate game menu for our lunch at The Kingham Plough, a North Cotswolds pub slap bang on the Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire borders and a short walk from Kingham railway station, which is on the mainline from Oxford to Hereford.
Located opposite the village green, The Kingham Plough was taken over 11 years ago by former Heston Blumenthal chef Emily Watkins and her husband, Miles Lampson.
The couple hit the ground running as soon as they opened the doors of the pub, getting a rave review from the late AA Gill soon after and barely having time to look back.
Since they opened the pub, they have juggled the business with the welcome arrival of four children and as well as being a busy mum, Emily has become a bit of a celebrity, thanks to appearances on BBC’s Great British Menu.
Before walking through to the din- ing room with its pheasant-print wallpaper, we supped pints of crystal clear Clavell & Hind Blunder Buss (brewed in Birdlip, near Cirencester) next to the log fire, upright piano and vintage enamel sign for Wills’s Gold Flake cigarettes.
In the corner, a chap tapping away on a laptop was ordering a cheeseburger from the blackboard bar menu, while a young couple still clutching their Daylesford bags (the award-winning organic farm shop is just down the road) perused the printed a la carte menu.
To put the kitchen through its paces, we ordered from both the game menu and the à la carte. Lamb scrumpets (£9) was a full-flavoured opener, the cubes of crisp breadcrumbed, slow-cooked lamb teamed with a punchy anchovy and parsley mayonnaise. And how lovely to see such an old-fashioned dish as scrumpets on the menu.
Game also turned up on the à la carte in the shape of partridge Wellington (£22), the slices of moist partridge encased in crisp, buttery pastry, and served with a well considered seasonal accompaniment of mashed swede, poached quince, kale and a sumptuous game sauce.
Served weekday lunchtimes only during the shooting season, the game menu costs £19 for three courses or £16 for two.
A plump, juicy pheasant sausage had been scattered with thyme leaves and served with a wedge of salt-baked celeriac dotted with a fruity prune gel. It was followed by a rich venison ragu, which had been mixed through fresh tagliatelle (which was slightly undercooked) and topped with ribbons of aged Berkswell cheese with plenty of salty bite.
Jumping back to the à la carte, a slice of spicy, warming, ginger cake (£7) was paired with pert, ripe blackberries and intense blackberry sorbet.
My friend’s cheeseboard (£9 for three) comprised generous pieces of Rollright (a semi-soft washed-rind cow’s milk cheese made from milk from a herd of just 30 cows at King Stone Farm down the road at Little Rollright, Chipping Norton), Sinodun Hill (soft goats’ cheese made by Rachel Yarrow and Fraser Norton at Earth Trust, a charity farm in nearby Little Wittenham) and Stichelton (the famous blue cheese from Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire) – all of them in perfect condition and served with biscuits, quince jelly and tea loaf. It was a truly exceptional cheeseboard.
As we waddled along the country lanes back to the railway station in the late afternoon sun, past the Royal British Legion club and the handsome 14th century church, we agreed that it was a lunch that had raised the game for other meals during the shooting season. You could say, it’s game on.
RATING 4/5