Western Daily Press (Saturday)
The dining experience that’s just our secret – promise?
I THOUGHT I had unearthed most of the must-visit pubs in Gloucestershire but The Plough Inn at Cold Aston must be one of the last of the truly hidden gems in the Cotswolds.
Located on a small green opposite the village hall tucked away between Cheltenham and tourist-packed Bourton-on-the-Water, this grade II-listed 17th-century inn is at the hub of an impossibly pretty village with a Norman church and a primary school which had just 87 pupils at the time of its last ‘Outstanding’ visit from Ofsted.
If there is a more perfect village in the Cotswolds, I have yet to find it and in some ways the only surprise is the fact that film and TV crews aren’t camped there all year round for period dramas.
The Plough Inn was taken over last year by Thomas and Josie Hughes, who moved to the village with their two small boys and a fox red labrador.
After Oxford University, Thomas worked as a management consultant in London but after three years of commuting on the tube every day, he gave it all up to realise his dream of running pubs.
He moved to the Cotswolds and started an in-house apprenticeship at the Wheatsheaf at Northleach, the flagship pub for boutique hotel and restaurant company the Lucky Onion Group. He worked his way up to GM at the Wheatsheaf and helped to make its name before moving on after three years to run Peter de Savary’s Devon pub-with-rooms, The Cary Arms & Spa in Babbacombe, before returning to the Cotswolds to take on The Plough.
The Lucky Onion Group has produced a number of talented operators and it can be no coincidence that two of the best Cotswold pubs I’ve visited in recent months – The Bell at Langford and The Swan at Ascott-under-Wychwood – are run by ex-employees.
The same can be said of The Plough, which seems to be staffed by former Wheatsheaf staff and the level of service was exemplary when I visited last week – friendly, chatty but super-slick.
With its flagstone floors, head-cracking low beams and original fireplaces, The Plough Inn ticks every conceivable box for ‘perfect village pub’.
There are flickering church candles perched on old barrels, cosy nooks and crannies and a couple of villagers at the bar drinking local cider.
New chef Jonathan Grey has recently arrived with a CV peppered with experience in Michelin-rated restaurants and pubs including the famous Star Inn at Harome in Yorkshire and time spent under celebrity chef John Burton Race.
His menu combines pub classics – think beer-battered fish and chips, a burger and a pie of the day – with more refined dishes like hot-smoked chalk stream trout, couscous and dill crème fraîche; 24-hour smoked beef short rib with truffle macaroni cheese and fillet of seabass with chicory, orange, mint and green beans.
I started with devilled kidneys on toast (£8.50), a simple dish which can always be a good test of a kitchen.
The plump, still-pink kidneys had the requisite farmyard honk and the blanket of dark, sticky sauce boasted plenty of spice and heft from the mustard and Worcestershire sauce. God, it was good. So good, in fact, that I seriously considered ordering a second portion before the main course. The best version of devilled kidneys on toast I can recall was at The Bell at Langford last year but this was just as good – perhaps it’s the same recipe.
The pub may be in landlocked Gloucestershire but it has strong supply lines to the south coast and fish arrives daily from Brixham.
A whole Torbay sole (£18) was precisely cooked, its delicate flesh slipping away from the bones with ease, and it was served with some crunchy samphire, ripe cherry tomatoes, a punchy sauce vierge and crisp, herb-flecked sautéed potatoes. I could have happily finished with the apple and rhubarb crumble or the Eton mess but the cheeseboard (£9 for three cheeses, truffle honey, chutney and crackers) was far too tempting with its local Rollright cow’s milk cheese from Chipping Norton, Ashlynn goat’s cheese from Worcester and Harbourne Blue from Devon. It was a fine and generous cheeseboard for the price.
Although it’s my job to share exciting new dining experiences with readers on these pages, occasionally I visit a place that I don’t want to write about at all. The Plough Inn at Cold Aston is one of those places because it’s almost too good to share but I’m sure my secret is safe with you and you won’t flock there immediately. As if.
RATING 5/5