The best restaurants serving British food in Cheswardine Shropshire West Midlands

One of the best places to eat in Shropshire, food always excellent, surrounding countryside just adds to the ambience of this beautiful place. I've been going there for twenty years and it's always excellent, the only place I would recommend 👌

We decided to spend a couple of days exploring gardens in the area that are open to the public. Goldstone Hall Hotel has one such, so it was the obvious place to spend the night. Their ornamental garden is really nice with an impressive herbaceous border. But the stand-out is the large kitchen garden which has its own dedicated gardener looking after it and she is able to supply much of the seasonal fruit and veg for the restaurant. This is mainly intended as a food review but our room is worthy of mention. It was one of the cheaper “Garden Rooms” which does overlook the garden.. Access to the four Garden Rooms is through what can only be described as a junk room – full of old sofas, heaps of old cushions, stacks of crockery, logs and other “stuff”. It really makes a bad first impression. The room itself was generally fine, although with minimal storage for clothes, even the small amount we’d brought for our one night stay. But it was a nice touch for there to be a bunch of grapes and a vase full of dahlias - both from the garden. We looked over dinner menus while sipping an aperitif on the terrace. It was one of those rare days this summer when it was warm enough to do that. Drinks came with house made lemon thyme crisps. It was the first example of the kitchen garden produce finding its way to the restaurant. It’s a short menu with five choices at each course. It’s the sort of food where I can imagine a competent home cook thinking “I could do that at home on a really good day” – but they probably couldn’t. Once in the dining room, there were a couple of snacks – a tangy blue cheese beignet and a disc of beetroot, topped with a tiny amount of maybe smoked fish. Beetroot also featured in one of the starters. A strip of shortcrust pastry, topped with a Shropshire Blue cheese mousse, pickled beetroot chunks and a couple of leaves of sorrel. The other starter saw shredded ham hock, served warm, with a scattering of lentils, shallot and a tang from English mustard. Cod was just cooked through for one of the main courses. There’s braised wild rice. And the kitchen had made the effort to skin broad beans from the garden so there was a really nice contrasting green on the plate. The sauce came from crème fraiche, given a zing from horseradish. Pork fillet had been stuffed with sage and Shrewsbury Fretta cheese (yes, it’s a feta lookalike) and could have stood more of both. There’s mixed greens and a Madeira sauce bringing it all together. There was a dish of potato dauphinoise to share, made from Yukon Gold spuds grown in the garden – I think the first time I’ve seen this North American potato in a restaurant here. There’s another bowl of courgettes which had a herby hint – maybe tarragon. We both went with the same dessert. An absolutely lovely berry soufflé, accompanied by a woodruff ice cream. The latter is one of many herbs growing in the kitchen garden. This one wasn’t really to our taste, seeming a bit “medicinal”. We finished with decent espresso, served in the lounge, along with a couple of petit fours. Breakfast was really nice. Fresh fruit and yoghurt was laid out so you could help yourself – amongst the offerings, figs and blackberries came from the garden. Orange juice was top quality and there was a choice of teas for one of us who likes tea. Cafetiere coffee was good. Orders were taken for cooked food. There is , of course, a “Full English” and a “Full Vegetarian” but we both decided to go with the local speciality – Staffordshire oatcakes, filled with a tangy cheddar and bacon. Toast was offered but we were full by then. So, all in all, a good stay. And dinner in the restaurant passed our “travelling test” – if this was local to home, would we become regulars.

A lovely local pub, very friendly with a super atmosphere, plenty of seating inside and a great beer garden. Staff were lovely too. Plenty of events planned, advertised on website.