Ashfields Restaurant

June, for me, is one of those months where anyone and everyone seems to have a birthday! So with several reasons to celebrate, my family and I headed out to ‘Ashfields Restaurant’ in Earl Shilton for what we hoped to be a special birthday dinner.

Ashfields is a restaurant (not a pub or even a gastro pub) which serves ‘classic yet innovative English food with a notably European twist’. It claims to use seasonal ingredients, local meats and fresh seafoods to create ‘superior food’. 

I have dined at Ashfields once before but when I was much younger. The only thing I can really remember was the very formal and somewhat ‘stuffy’ dining room. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that since my last visit, Ashfields had undergone a makeover. Now with its soft greens walls, light wooden furniture and stripy carpet, Ashfields has become a modern, bright, spacious restaurant with a much more informal, relaxing dining environment.

The area known as ‘The Bar’ also helped to contribute to the improved atmosphere.  This is the place where you can order your drinks, but is also the area where you are encouraged to relax, away from your table while viewing the menus and the daily specials on the blackboard. Staff take your order while you're still seated in ‘The Bar’ so it’s not until your starters are almost ready do you get called through to the restaurant. For me this is a welcomed addition to the eating out experience, allowing you time to unwind and talk with your fellow diners while creating a greater sense of occasion when it comes to main event – the meal.

So while busy relaxing in ‘The Bar’, I began to contemplate my food selection from what I considered to be, a well thought out menu. By allowing some of the starters to be served as mains (and with the additional dishes on the specials board) the menu becomes quite large and varied. As a result, choosing what to eat became a difficult and lengthy experience so I think we were all grateful for the added comfort provided by ‘The Bar’.  In the end I opted for the ‘Deep fried whole Capricorn goats cheese in almond crumb with beetroot chutney, honey & mustard dressing’ followed by the ‘Slow cooked confit of duck leg & breast with roasted pineapple and a pink peppercorn sauce’. Both dishes were very good. The size of the goat’s cheese was enormous. Too much cheese for me in one sitting but better too much than too little? Despite being deep fried, it wasn’t greasy at all. In fact, strangely, the almond crumb was almost a little dry and so needed the beetroot chutney and dressing to moisten the dish. My fellow diners enjoyed a quality Italian meat platter (for two) as their starter. Even though it was shared by 3 (and me) the generous portion size meant we couldn’t quite manage it all and there was even some left over!

My duck was perfectly cooked. The breast was pink and bouncy with a crispy skin and the meat off the leg fell with ease from the bone. The pink peppercorns gave the dish an extra dimension and added spice, a contrasting texture and a sort of floral flavour.  The duck and pineapple chunks together with the large bowl of hot vegetables and potatoes served with all the mains, resulted in a very satisfying plate of food, representing good value for money at £16.95.  My only criticism of the whole meal would be the way the potatoes were cooked. They were not deep fried so were not chips but they hadn’t seen an oven either, so were not roasted. They were a bit like the ‘roast potatoes’ I remember being served at school. Small, a bit greasy and kind of soggy. There were however, some fried onions scattered amongst the ‘side with no name’ so that did help improve the potato situation slightly.

Given the generous portion size of all the dishes (and the fact we scoffed the bread that comes with the starters too) none of us could quite manage a dessert. But going back to the well thought out menu, there was the option of a cream filled brandy snap, served with fresh fruit for only £1.25.  Nice to be able to end the meal on something sweet that doesn’t break the budget (other desserts priced at £5.50) or the top button of your jeans!

So all in all, Ashfields Restaurant proved to be a most suitable birthday celebration location. All four of us enjoyed the tasty, well cooked, nicely presented, hearty meals which were made with care and quality ingredients.  I would definitely recommend Ashfields to anyone looking for a friendly, British restaurant, serving simple but satisfying food.

Restaurant              4/5

Food                         4/5
Service                     4/5
Value for money    4/5

Total 16/20