The Three Tuns, Great Bedwyn

Wednesday. Excellent in every way. Friday. Steak would have better chopped up and put in a pasty and chips no better than the average chip shop.

Absolutely lovely!! Food is delightful, local produce, brilliant service, very friendly and welcoming. Good looking staff!

This is truly a gem, I can't praise the Three Tuns (food & service) enough really and the meat raffle after Sunday lunch is hilarious. The perfect take-away, fresh produce, delicious if you're lucky enough (very likely by the way) to win one of the luscious, local choices.

The Three Tuns is a gem of restaurant and deserves commendation on every level. On a recent canal holiday with my wife June, we moored in the small Wiltshire village of Great Bedwyn. On our second day in the village we visited the Three Tuns for a lunchtime snack. Although on one level this is a traditional and quaint village pub, complete with a roaring log fire and lovely beer garden in the back, it is the pubs many humorous little eccentricities that really allows the Three Tuns to stand head and shoulders above the multitude of dreary chain pubs we have all become so accustomed to these days. There are too many to list here but one can't talk about this place and neglect to mention the life size Blue's Brother's in either corner, which are apparently a constant source of surprise and amusement to visitors and locals alike.

We were greeted by a friendly welcome from the landlady despite the fact that the bar was already beginning to fill with hungry lunchers and bantering locals. We were quickly seated and in possession of both menus and drinks (the local beer 6X makes for a wonderful pint incidentally) and suddenly found ourselves facing the most awful dilemma. Although we had intended to come in for only a ploughman's or a baguette we were suddenly confronted with the most tantalizing of choices. Everything from ingenious uses of local game and produce, such as rabbit, pheasant and partridge to really creative dishes such as jambalaya, duck pancakes (wrapped in a proper English pancake rather than those ridiculous paper thin Chinese ones), sea bass and Toulouse Cassoulet. There were even, for once, appetizing options for vegetarians. June was delighted with the prospect of sweet peppers filled with wild mushroom risotto. For those who are less adventurous there is also a good stock of more traditional 'pub grub' including a very generous looking cod and chips, fresh mussels and chicken madras curry. However the Fillet steak and the Thai Green curry are way above what you would normally expect for a country pub. For lunch however we both opted for simple starters planning to return for a more through investigation of the menu that evening. June chose the Goats cheese salad which looked and tasted lovely, where as I went for the pigeon breast with a raspberry sauce and black pudding which was just to die for.

As I said we were so impressed, not to mention enticed by the menu, that we returned later on that evening. At lunch time we had been seated in the main bar which was homely and comfortable, whilst at the same time had a rather animated and lively atmosphere. In the evening however we were escorted through to the main restaurant. This was a rather more elegant and formal setting, although it still retained something of the distinctive quirkiness that we were becoming accustomed to. At the end of the restaurant there was, seated in a little alcove, a life sized figure dressed in her Parisian finest. A wonderful touch.

This time we decided to go all out. June had the smoked salmon with horseradish potato cakes to start, which although she approached them with some trepidation, were apparently wonderful. I can't describe them myself as she enjoyed them so much that she didn't even save me a single bite! Having been so impressed with my earlier venture down the game road, I chose to start with the quail. Although it is somewhat of a tricky bird to eat, the distinctive taste and rather comical appearance more than made up for that. June then tucked into the aforementioned stuffed peppers with mushroom risotto, which worked so well with the pepper coulis. She managed to polish the entire thing off with relish despite the fact she doesn't even like rice! I was going to have the brie and leek pancakes with a cranberry sauce, when at the last moment I changed my mind and settled for the calves' liver. I have always steered clear of calves' liver on account of June's dislike of veal, but it just smelled so wonderful and tasted even better. It almost has a butter like quality, in the way it just melts in your mouth and along with the red onion gravy and the bacon it was just a fantastic combination of taste and textures. I have since been told that calves liver can be very tough and leathery if cooked badly, but that certainly wasn't the case in the Three Tuns. Although by this point I was almost full to bursting, my sweet tooth just couldn't resist a slice of home made lime cheesecake which, with a raspberry coulis was just lovely.

I must also make special recognition of the staff in this review as well. These days where I think that we have all become so accustomed to the grunts of rudeness from the young people who serve us in our shops and restaurants (and even, one hates to admit from ones own children at times) the young staff of the Three Tuns left us genuinely shocked. Not only were they attentive, helpful and good at their job, but they were actually friendly, pleasant and willing to chat to people over twenty five years of age. However as landlady Jan pointed out they deliberately choose staff of high calibre, with psychology, classics and even a philosophy student on their books. As for the Landlord and Landlady themselves they are a warm, welcoming and very entertaining couple. As Alan let me sample one too many of his malt whiskeys you really get the sense from them that they do what they do because, quite simply, they just love the business, and love the people who walk through those doors each and every night. With Alan in the kitchen and Jan looking after front of house, they said they just simply couldn't imagine doing anything else with their lives now.

We ended up staying Great Bedwyn for the duration of the week and we did indeed manage, in the end, between us to sample the majority of things on the Three Tuns menu and, in varying degrees, it was all just as wonderful as it was on our first day there. Now we are just left to lament that there is no Three Tuns in our home town of Stafford but there is always next summers barging holiday to look forward to!