The George at Alstonefield

The George at Alstonefield, on the border of Staffordshire and Derbyshire looks like the quintessential country pub. Inside I found top notch modern and creative British cooking featuring local and seasonal ingredients. Highly recommended.

THE GEORGE AT ALSTONEFIELD

My first attempt eating at The George at Alstonefield had been thwarted. I’d planned to go to their tasting evening featuring exceptional young chef Louisa Ellis. Like millions of other fans of MasterChef The Professionals, I’d been wowed by her cooking as she reached the finals of the 2017 competition. Unfortunately, a clash of dates meant I couldn’t make it. But if The George was working with such a brilliant talent, then clearly some pretty fine cooking must be going on there.

While I’ll go a fair distance for a good feed, Staffordshire is the main focus of my attention. That’s partly because, wearing one of my other hats, I’m Staffordshire editor at Great Food Club. So The George wasn’t immediately on my radar as, despite sitting in my home ground of the Staffordshire Moorlands, it has one of those pesky Derbyshire post codes.

Anyway, I got there in the end one blustery and rainy March evening. And very grateful we (myself and partner, ID), were for The George’s snug interior.

A former coach house, this four hundred year old building has been beautifully restored. We sat beneath low, wooden beams with quarry tiles underfoot. Quirky old photographs and notices hung on the lime plastered walls.

MENU

The evening menu at The George offered six choices of starter and six main courses. For me, a committed omnivore, I would happily have eaten any of these dishes so there was plenty to choose from.

It’s always pleasing to see lots of seasonal ingredients. The George also aims, wherever possible, to source within a 15 mile radius, including veg from nearby allotment holders.

STARTERS

Wood pigeon

For my starter, I chose Wood pigeon, butternut purée , caper and raisin dressing, cob nuts, Savoy cabbage.

I hadn’t eaten pigeon in a while, having had mixed experiences in the past. If overcooked, pigeon can become unpleasantly liver-ish which I’m not at all keen on. If The George could produce a pigeon dish I really liked then we’d be off to an excellent start.

As I hope you’ll agree judging by the image below, the pigeon breast was cooked perfectly. Avoiding my other pet hate of almost raw pigeon, this was nicely pink. The flesh was wonderfully soft, tender and juicy.

I loved the accompaniments too. Butternut squash is often served too sweet for my taste, but this purée was deeply savoury.

The Savoy cabbage, studded with dinky pieces of carrot brought a lovely fresh element, being just barely but expertly cooked. The cob nuts’ crunchy earthiness was a good contrast to the rest of the dish. I thought the capers in the raisin dressing gave a piquant edge which again avoided too much sweetness.

In short, a very impressive dish with a perfect balance of flavours and textures. If this was the norm, then I’d certainly order pigeon more often.

Cauliflower

My partner ID opted for the one vegetarian starter: Cauliflower panna cotta, yeasted cauliflower purée, cauliflower textures, mustard ice cream. He’s very keen on cauliflower, so a dish containing it in just about every form you can think of was right up his street.

Tasting some of this dish, I thought there was a good range of textures, including soft panna cotta and purée, crunchy pickled cauliflower and puffed rice. I’m quite the fan of savoury ice cream and thought the mustard ice cream the best thing on the plate.

ID thought the dish a little under seasoned and we agreed that perhaps some of the flavours could be ramped up a bit. Maybe the yeasted purée could be a little more yeasty, the ice cream a tad more mustardy?

But this was still a good dish and testament to the high standards and creativity of the kitchen.

MAIN COURSE

Beef

We both chose the same main course of Derbyshire fillet of beef, braised oxtail, charred gem, truffle pomme purée , marrow bone crumb. We also came to the same conclusion about it. Superb.

Fillet of beef is not my first choice of cut as it can lack flavour. But I was pleased to find that at The George the depth of flavour was more like a steak with a good marbling of fat.

On the menu, the beef was described as being served medium rare. I’m tempted to say it was very slightly edging towards the medium rather than the medium rare. But I’m no expert and does it matter when this was probably the best fillet of beef I can remember?

As if that wasn’t enough beefiness, the fillet came topped with even more powerfully-flavoured braised oxtail. These soft, flavoursome strands were utterly gorgeous, but were taken to an even higher level with a sprinkle of salty, crispy crumbs imbued with fatty marrow bone.

Every mouthful was stunningly good.

The accompanying potato purée was perfectly smooth and well seasoned. There was a nice amount of the advertised truffle flavour in it too and, in a world where truffle oil currently seems to be listed on lots of menus but is often undetectable on the palate, that warrants a few more brownie points in my book. A puddle of strong and meaty sauce over the purée was bang on too.

The charred lettuce was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because, after first eating it 10 or 12 years ago in Granada, Spain with loads of sliced garlic and paprika, I’ve since rarely eaten one done as well. If the charring’s taken too far, I find it kills the very freshness that we want in the vegetable. But ten out of ten for The George again. Just the right amount of charring gave the lettuce an agreeable smokiness without overwhelming it.

A CHEEKY SIDE DISH

While we’d been eating our first course, mains were served to the couple at the next table. They’d also ordered the beef plus a side of Triple cooked chips. The chips looked and smelled so appetizing, we quickly added some to our order, despite potato already included with the main. Yes, I know that’s greedy. Although, in our defence, we had spent a pretty long afternoon gardening so were rather hungry.

Anyway, that’s how we came to be undertaking the not-very-sophisticated act of dipping chips into truffled potato puree. But I highly recommend it!

The big, fat chips tasted like they might have been cooked in beef fat. I’d asked for some salt to go with them but it was barely needed as they were well seasoned. Some were crunchy, some soft. All were delicious.

After eating about two thirds of the chips, one or the other of us would say, now and then, ‘I can’t eat any more’. And then, of course, we’d do precisely the opposite until we’d scoffed the lot.

DESSERTS

It’s a rare occasion when we’re out for dinner that we’ll forgo dessert, no matter how many chips we’ve eaten. The George’s dessert menu offered four tempting puds plus a cheeseboard.

Yorkshire forced rhubarb cheesecake, parkin, poached rhubarb, rhubarb & rosewater macaroon

If there’s a rhubarb dessert going, there’s a good chance I’ll order it, especially when it’s the famed pink variety from the Yorkshire rhubarb triangle. The neat idea of pairing it with parkin, a cake that also has Yorkshire roots, particularly appealed to me.

The cheesecake itself was plain, which is fine by me, and was nicely smooth and creamy. I couldn’t detect much flavour in the oblong shaped gel sitting on top of it though.

However, that hardly mattered as the swirls of rhubarb sauce on the plate were plentiful. This sauce, along with the precisely cooked poached rhubarb, had a balance of sweet and tart that was just right for my taste.

Ginger is a classic pairing with rhubarb and the gingery parkin, which served as the cheesecake base and also flavoured the excellent ice cream, worked well.

Despite rosewater being one of the few flavours I’d say I really don’t like at all, I just had to try the pretty pink little rhubarb and rosewater macaroon. This was beautifully made, but ID had to (happily) finish it as even the great cooking at The George couldn’t convert me to its flowery perfume.

A chocolate pudding lover, ID’s own choice wasn’t difficult to guess:

Chocolate fondant, pine ice cream, chocolate sauce, salted caramel

The chocolate fondant itself was quite small, but then at £7 for cooking of this standard you could hardly say you were short changed.

At a recent visit to Larder Lichfield I’d been bowled over by the peppery spiciness of pine dust on a lemon dessert, so was eager to have a taste of ID’s pine ice cream here. At The George, the flavour was much more subtle, and we felt it would have benefited from being a little bolder.

But of greater importance to lovers of chocolate fondant, I guess, is the matter of whether it had a properly oozing, chocolate middle. I’m happy to report, yes it did.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Appearing in, among others, The Good Food Guide and the Michelin Guide, you’d expect to get a quality food experience at The George. Even so, I was surprised at just how high the standard of cooking was.

For my taste, the kitchen could have intensified one or two of the flavours, such as the yeasted cauliflower puree and the pine ice cream.

Nevertheless, you’d have to say not only was there nothing it would be fair to actually fault, but that the choice of ingredients and quality of cooking were excellent.

In particular, our main course fillet of beef stood out. Here was the boldness and gutsy flavour which is exactly what I want when I go out to eat. It was one of those plates of food that we’ll talk about for some time to come.

What I also loved about The George at Alstonefield was the informal, friendly atmosphere. While the food is top-notch modern British cooking, you still feel that you’re in a traditional country pub without pretension.

Our food bill came to around £78. Considering we had that side of fab chips, and we’d both ordered the most expensive main course (most mains were £4 – £8 less), I think that’s pretty good value for money for such enjoyable dining.

In fact, we’re already talking about when our next visit will be.

Highly recommended.