Hardwick

Very good interesting food in smartly simple dining pub, good beers and wines too

We always come away feeling we have had a treat' remarked one reader of this very well run dining pub. The emphasis is clearly on the cooking, though they do have two changing ales on handpump, from Breconshire, Otley or Rhymney, as well as local bottled ciders and a splendid choice of good interesting wines by the glass, in a choice of glass sizes. The bar, with a small functional corner servery, is a simple room with spindleback chairs around pub tables, and some stripped brickwork around a disused fireplace. The better of the two dining rooms actually has rather more of a pub feel, given its dark beams, a winged high-backed settle by the end serving counter, another facing a small pew across one table tucked in by a huge fireplace, and a nice mix of other tables and chairs on bare boards with a big rug (the lack of soft furnishings here can make the acoustics rather lively). The second dining room in a carpeted extension is lighter and simpler, more modern in style, with big windows; there is some interesting artwork. Service is welcoming and helpful; there may be piped music. They have teak tables and chairs out under umbrellas by the car park, and the garden is neatly kept. They plan to open bedrooms.

Owner-chef Stephen Terry's talent in using carefully selected largely local ingredients to create both supercharged variations on familiar dishes and more original recipes is well known to us from at least two of his previous businesses. Nothing's cheap here, but given the quality it's all good value. His crisp thrice-cooked chips add something special to the tender home-baked ham and eggs, and the grilled lunchtime sandwiches might include delicate goats cheese with tapenade and mixed vegetables as an eye-opening variant on the humble cheese toastie. The extensive lunch and dinner menus might include provençal-style fish soup, starters like confit duck hash with fried local duck egg, salad of buffalo mozzarella with polenta croûtons, anchovies and sun-dried tomato, or mussels on bruschetta, and main courses such as fried sea trout with roasted beetroot, sauté new potatoes, smoked bacon, rocket and horseradish, home-made local gloucester old spot pork meatballs in tomato sauce with penne pasta, caesar salad made with locally smoked chicken, and roast boneless wing of skate with wild garlic mash, carrots and braised fennel; puddings like sticky toffee and medjool date loaf with toffee sauce, or vanilla panna cotta with rhubarb jelly and stem ginger shortbread. Children's menu, fixed-price two- and three-course lunches; Sunday roasts.