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The roast with the most at
The Newbury...
in
Newbury
HILARY SCOTT gets a flavour... plenty of flavour... at a pub in the centre of town
I
f you’re good at cooking Sunday roasts – and a
lot of us are – then it’s often the one meal that
can disappoint when you eat it out. Well fear no
more – we’ve found a gastro pub that dishes up
one of the best.
The Newbury in Newbury town centre is proud of
its Sunday roast dinners, and rightly so. Succulent
local meat, flavoursome gravy, crisp roasties, light
and fluffy Yorkshires, vegetables that are cooked
individually and with added seasonings like carrots
cooked in orange juice. And everything is steeped
in flavour, flavour, flavour. For £15 you can choose
from pork belly with a shard-like crackling and
apple sauce; roast sirloin which has been cooking
since the Saturday night at a low temperature so it
is meltingly soft yet still pink; or roast poussin with
bread sauce.
Can’t choose? Try the sharing board that offers
all the above for two diners or more at £18 per
person.
Of course we tried the sharing board – the
rosemary-flecked poussin nestled beside the
just-right sirloin and surrounded by rounds of
pork. The board also included our sauces – an
apple butter to melt over the pork which was new
to us, but the cold butter oozing over the hot pork
with its crunchy outside was fab, a horseradish
with a bite and a lovely bread sauce. Everything
is home-made – sauces, ice creams, pastry and
more – and owner Pete Lumber and chef Darren
Booker-Wilson are proud of that.
“We don’t have a microwave and we have a small
freezer for ice creams and sorbets,”
says Darren.
But while that roast dinner will remain in our
memories for a good while, the rest of the menu at
The Newbury is also really noteworthy.
Top right, orange and passionfruit tart,
right espresso martini,
below, Sunday roast with all the trimmings