The Puesdown, Glos.

Gloucestershire is once again, for the summer, full of the smart set and affluent, hoping for a sunny weekend in their country getaways. In London and other major cities of the country they dine on the finest French, Italian, Japanese and Middle Eastern, but in the country one fancies the Gastro pub. Once a novel idea, now the staple of countryside eating, they tend to have lost their shine. I have seen many of the local establishments which once provided high quality, relatively simple food for good prices fall from grace. The Puesdown is only one of the many, but still a disappointment.

We had for many years meant to go, as we drove past it regularly, and at last we did, in the knowledge that in 2007 it had won best Gastro pub in the South West. However, I hope much has changed. It was purely meant to be a simple lunch on a Wednesday, and essentially it was, but it was also much much more.

The outside is far and away the best part of this once fine establishment. It is an old coaching Inn with a great history. This sadly means it is on the busy A40, but at the back, in the garden looking over the picturesque Cotswold Hills to Hazelton one doesn’t notice it. But sadly from here it only gets worse.

We only had main courses and that was certainly more than enough. The menu lacked variety and originality, and certainly did not meet expectations. I had the Slow cooked pork with redcurrant and thyme jus, vegetables and mash. The pork admittedly had good flavour and texture, while the jus was not overly sweet or overpowering. However the vegetables were last night’s, gently fried to warm them up, and tasted as if they had suffered this process repeatedly. The mash also was lacklustre, flat and with the amazing addition of peas. The other meal was Ham, Eggs and Chips. Even Wetherspoons can recreate this pub staple to a tolerable level, but even this was beyond the Puesdown. The Ham tasted of the fridge, and the chips were exceedingly suspect. We suspect that they were oven chips. However they did manage to fry the egg correctly giving a runny yoke, which had they failed would have been tantamount to murder.

Beyond this the two staff we saw failed to smile once during the time we were there, and the interior was in need of some renovation. I am not someone who insists that a pub should be pristine, but with skirting boards missing and bin bags of rubbish visible in the other room it was too far.

I would certainly not recommend this pub to anyone, and would say it was only a marginal improvement on the Little Chef which had existed over the road. The food came to about £25, ridiculous for what we had. The other three tables meant that there was no way anyone was stretched. Although I imagine that evening and weekend services are a marked improvement, from this experience I am not tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt, and will not be passing their doors again, unless there is change in management or ethos.