Western Daily Press (Saturday)
SECRETS OF PUB SUCCESS
THEY are in celebratory mood at The Three Crowns this month and so they should be. The pub on the village green at Brinkworth has just entered the AA Pub Guide 2020 for the first time as one of its prestigious ‘ pick of the pubs’.
With its locally sourced menus and not-for-profit shop selling bread, milk and eggs, this dog-friendly boozer is very much the village hub.
Conveniently positioned a mile from the M4, Brinkworth is between Royal Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury, and said to be one of the longest villages in England, stretching some 1.5 miles through glorious North Wiltshire countryside.
It might not be as chocolate box perfect as other Cotswold villages but it has a fabulous Grade I-listed 14th-century church, a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery and a working dairy farm.
Before lunch, I wandered around the village, past houses with jugs of sweet peas for sale at the garden gate and into St Michael and All Angels, where pots of homemade quince jelly were being sold for the church fabric fund.
It’s one of those time-stood-still English villages where only the noise of the occasional hay baler or the teacher’s whistle in the playground of the primary school pierces the tranquility.
I’d never set foot in The Three Crowns before but I was greeted by the woman behind the bar like a regular and quite possibly a long-lost family member. The welcome couldn’t have been warmer as she pulled me a pint of Butcombe Bitter and handed me the menu, showing me through to the conservatory dining room with its pine farmhouse tables, bookcases and doors held open by cider flagons.
In the midday sun, it was too hot to eat in the conservatory so I headed for the shaded garden at the side.
Head chef Steve Newton sources as much as possible from local suppliers, many of them from neighbouring farms and the village dairy.
At lunchtime, the pub serves sandwiches alongside the main menu, which combines pub classics - there was a ploughman’s, fish and chips and gammon steak with Brinkworth Farm eggs, chips and piccalilli on
Mark Taylor finds the sort of pub we’d all like on our doorstep
offer when I visited - and more ‘restauranty’ dishes.
I kicked off with seared Scottish scallops, black pudding, garden peas and chorizo salsa (£10) - a beautifully presented plate of food and a generous portion for the price.
The three plump, perfectly seasoned scallops were accurately timed and still quivering and opaque on their plinths of soft, herby black pudding. The sweetness of the peas and grassiness of the pea shoots was countered by the salty spiciness of the finely diced chorizo.
It was followed by glazed beef cheek, Parma ham, shallots, shimeji mushrooms and red wine jus (£17), again a good-looking dish that had been plated up with great care. The cheek had been slow-cooked and refashioned into thick wheels of tender meat with plenty of beefy heft.
The shimeji mushrooms provided more of a textural contrast than any real flavour but the crisp Parma ham, roasted shallots, tenderstem broccoli and carrot were all brought together by a varnish-like gravy. To the side, a dish of creamy Dauphinoise potatoes and a separate portion of broccoli, cabbage and carrots certainly ensured I had reached my five-aday.
These were substantial portions aimed more at horny-handed farmers breaking off from a day of hard toil than desk-bound journalists and there was no room for dessert but the pub’s ‘signature’ take on a Snickers bar (chocolate mousse, salted caramel ice cream, peanut brittle and peanut parfait) already has my name on it for a return visit.
This is a thriving country pub that has everything covered for the locals and destination diners alike, whether it’s quiz nights, weekend breakfasts or the occasional Friday steak and lobster night.
The Three Crowns also has a takeaway food option and even offers a canine menu for visiting dogs. It’s not hard to see why this quintessential village pub has scooped such a coveted accolade in the new edition of the AA Pub Guide. It’s the pub we would all like to be on our doorstep.
RATING 4/5
The Three Crowns, The Street, Brinkworth, Chippenham, SN15
5AF. Tel: 01666 510366. www.threecrownsbrinkworthco.uk