Inspired Costwolds simplicity

In charge: Emily Watkins, a protégé of Heston Blumenthal
Simon Davis10 April 2012

The last time I was in Kingham I wasn’t wearing trousers. It was during the floods, I tried to wade home, it’s a long story. This week I visited fully clothed.

Once named village of the year by Country Life, Kingham is an hour and a half by train from Paddington and the same by car. But frankly the pub I’ve found is so impressive it’s worth three hours’ travelling — hell, I’d probably even walk it.

The Plough sits on the pretty village green and has been fully refurbished by young co-owners Emily Watkins, a chef, and Adam Dorrien-Smith.

There are attractive pubs in the Cotswolds and many claim wonderful food, but none I have tried are much good (apart from the Churchill Arms in Paxford). The Plough — from the experience my wife and I had this week — is a serious find.

The food is too good here to waste space writing about the interior of the pub. Suffice to say it’s really nice.

I doubt any of you will have heard of Watkins, but for two years she was sous chef to Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in Bray. Blumenthal, as everyone knows, is the pioneer who fiddle faddles with flavours and ends up with egg and bacon ice cream and snail porridge.

Aside from El Bulli in Spain, The Fat Duck is arguably the world’s best restaurant and has three Michelin stars.

Watkins has clearly learned much from her mentor freshly cooked, locally sourced food with distinct flavours, cooked with precision — but is not a fiddler.

Hers is a menu of delightful simplicity. Four starters and five main courses. (Note to restaurateurs, we don’t like long menus).

A crisp duck egg with watercress sauce and peppered bacon was divine. The egg, tucked up in its crunchy sleeping bag, rested on a puddle of watercress reduced with the precision of a perfumer; just the merest hint on the tongue and you may as well have been swimming through a creek full of the delicious peppery leaves. It
was the perfect foil for the rich, creamy duck egg yolk. A truly accomplished work.

My wife’s chicory, walnut and Oxford Blue salad was deemed 'delicious' although there was too much of the cheese, which is overpowering.

A Hereford steak was of excellent quality but more importantly it was cooked properly using Blumenthal’s temperature controlled waterbath method which elicits a far more intense flavour.

Most country pubs smother it in vile sauce. A stack of triple cooked chips were crispier than caramel on the outside and fluffy within.

And the crowning glory? When I asked for some horseradish a girl came over with a root and a grater and I shaved some on. Inspired; all restaurants again please take note.

My wife’s Gressingham duck was pinky and perky and I have it on good authority that the Evenlode lamb pudding with grandpa’s cabbage is winning.

There was no let up in quality with dessert, of which again there were just four. A hot peach mousse was bubble-bath light and the chocolate doughnut an explosion of chocolate ice-cream and sauce.

OK I’m gushing now but isn’t it always the place that opens with the least fanfare which invariably deserves the most.

The more than drinkable wine was £10 a bottle, they offer you jugs of iced tap water and it’s still a pub with locals drinking pints and a board offering pig’s ears for your dog at £1 each.

This is the best gastropub opening for many years and they don’t have the shirt off your back for it. Or your trousers for that matter.

The Kingham Plough
Kingham
Chipping Norton
Oxfordshire

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