The Three Horseshoes Country Inn – Blackshaw Moor, Leek

It’d been a while since I last had dinner at this country inn on the edge of the Staffordshire Peak District.

But I was pleased to discover that the kitchen still turns out an excellent standard of cooking, using great local and seasonal ingredients.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Prior to my most recent visit, it’d been a while since I’d eaten dinner at The Three Horseshoes Country Inn. I’d occasionally gone for Sunday lunch (even though I usually run a mile at the word ‘carvery’), because that served up here is of a very high standard. Using quality ingredients, including locally sourced meat, it’s a world away from the ‘pile it high, sell it cheap’ philosophy found at lesser establishments, but still represents good value.

But don’t go thinking my not spending an evening here for some time is a reflection on the dinners I’ve eaten. Because the truth is quite the reverse. I’d enjoyed previous meals so much that, noting the format of menus had since changed, I wasn’t sure it would live up to my high expectations.

On my last visit, the menu specific to The Stables Restaurant had been very much in the style of modern British fine dining. There were all those little extras like nibbles on arrival, pre-starters and pre-desserts that I love. These miniature masterpieces, offering something you didn’t expect and perhaps wouldn’t have ordered, can turn out to be among the highlights of a meal. I can still remember their fabulous pre-starter of a foamy mousse flavoured with baked potato.

However, noting that The Three Horseshoes restaurant still has its two AA Rosettes and was named best Casual Dining Restaurant in the Taste of Staffordshire Good Food Awards just last year, I decided to make a return visit.

MORE THAN A COUNTRY INN

Run by the same family since 1981 and expanded in 2015 to include the Mill Wheel Spa, The Three Horseshoes sits on the edge of the stunning Staffordshire Peak District and has various vantage points, not least on its patio, to view the magnificent landscape.

Given its setting and facilities, it’s unsurprising that The Three Horseshoes is also a popular wedding venue and holiday spot. It has guest rooms ranging from the traditional but good quality B&B-style all the way to the luxurious with private garden and hot tub from where you can appreciate those fabulous views.

THE FOOD

Inside the pub and restaurant, it’s a relaxed, informal atmosphere with traditional oak beams and open fires in winter.

Besides the traditional roasts, grills and pub classics, the menu has a good choice of imaginative starters and desserts. There are also modern British main courses in the ‘Signature’ section of the menu (not available Sundays).

TO START

ASPARAGUS

Choosing my starter, I was very pleased to see new season’s asparagus on the menu. Even better, that it was combined with one of my other favourite seasonal ingredients, wild garlic, in a dish described as Wye Valley asparagus, crispy egg yolk, wild garlic and asparagus soup with candied hazelnut.

This was an attractively arranged plate of food with the asparagus, still with good bite, in whole spears as well as in teeny slices.

Some spears had been partially rolled in what I assume was burnt onion powder or similar. Not generally a fan of anything burnt, I nevertheless liked these strong-tasting black grains which made a good visual contrast with the bright green of the asparagus and the delicate petals of pansy flowers. The pleasantly charred element was also a good flavour contrast to the sweet hazelnuts which also introduced a welcome crunchy element.

I was glad to see the plate wasn’t swimming in the olive-green soup (I’d call it more of a sauce), our server just pouring over a little, leaving the rest for me to add where I pleased. I enjoyed its slightly grassy flavour and used up all of it.

The only disappointment with this dish was that the promised ‘crispy’ egg did not materialise. The egg yolk was perfectly fine, although I’d have liked it a little runnier, so it was a shame that the dish wasn’t entirely as described. I understand that menu items may change for all sorts of reasons, but I think it’s generally best to make diners aware when ordering.

SMOKED HADDOCK CASSEROLE

My partner ordered the light casserole of smoked haddock, young leeks, Jersey potato, slow poached egg and chive vinaigrette.

This was a beautiful, delicate looking dish.

Flecks of leek, cubes of just-cooked potato, light golden haddock and egg peeping out from a foamy, snow-white broth decorated with white pansies and snipped chives.

The flavour was delicate too, the mild smokiness of the fish and the alliums subtly permeating the milky brew.

MAIN COURSE

For our main courses, we both chose the same dish from the Signature menu. Mustard crusted fillet of pork with pickled sweetheart cabbage, malted pork cheek doughnut and caramelized onion.

For my part, I must confess it was that delicious-sounding doughnut which attracted me to this dish.

PORK

I do like pork fillet, although find that it’s not always the tastiest of cuts. I don’t mind mustard in small amounts either, say in a dressing or creamy sauce. But the prospect of a piece of meat completely covered in it didn’t have me champing at the bit.

However, I love pork cheek. It’s one of those cuts that requires long, slow cooking to break it down and make it deliciously soft. Often braised in liquid and served whole, they make great comfort food served with mash.

As with our starters, considerable thought had been given to presenting an attractive plate of food.

EXPERTLY COOKED

The pork fillets were generously large and, as is the modern way, cooked so that they were ever-so-slightly pink in the middle. As I ate my way through the fillet, it was clear that the cooking of the meat and subsequent resting had been very accurate. Not only was the pork incredibly tender and, despite my misgivings about this cut, well-flavoured, it was uniformly pale pink all the way through; with a less skillful kitchen the central section of the fillet might well have been slightly underdone.

I did find the amount of mustard a little much for my taste. But as the menu said the pork would be ‘mustard crusted’ there’s really no ground for complaint on that score. My partner is a bigger fan of mustard than I and he didn’t have a problem with it.

So, what about that malted pork cheek doughnut? To paraphrase Jane Eyre; reader, I could have married it.

SAVOURY DOUGHNUT

There’s a lot of meaty bon-bons about these days and I suppose I was really expecting a couple of those small, crispy bites with a crunchy outside and soft inside. But no, this sphere, a bit smaller than a tennis ball, did resemble a doughnut with its smoothish surface and the suggestion of a sugar coating provided by, I assume, the malted element. Inside were rich shreds of pork meat, but with just pure, piggy flavour and nicely moist too.

We tried to work out what the shell of the doughnut reminded us of and the closest thing we could think of was the suet pastry in a proper, old-fashioned, boiled meat pudding – specifically the delicious bit that sits next to the filling and soaks up some of the gravy. In this case, there was the additional, intriguingly sweetish addition of maltiness and a pleasant grainy texture on the exterior.

The accompaniments of caramelized onion and pickled sweetheart cabbage provided a lot of pleasure too. The disc of onion agreeably browned and with a meaty essence. The cabbage provided a refreshingly tart element. To complete the plate were perfectly cooked mashed potato, broccoli and baby carrots. The very well-flavoured sauce echoed the bold meatiness found in the pork cheek.

DESSERTS

Given the quality of what we’d eaten so far, we obviously had to have dessert.

ARCTIC ROLL

I chose the fun-sounding “rhubarb & custard” arctic roll with elements of pistachio and sweet wine-poached rhubarb. I’m a sucker for the bright red, forced rhubarb when it’s in season so I’m always tempted to order dishes which include it, whether sweet or savoury. I also like the idea of reviving the retro arctic roll, familiar to those of us growing up in the 1970s and 80s.

I liked this pudding enormously. Its slightly garish appearance was probably fitting in a dish that was an homage to the not exactly highfalutin arctic roll. Thankfully, the store-bought dessert of my memory had been vastly improved upon and elevated to something really rather good.

What we also had, however, was a dish that didn’t entirely match the menu description again. The ‘elements of pistachio’ consisted of some pistachios sprinkled over, whereas a lot of work had clearly gone into making an excellent rhubarb gel and shiny little cubes of rhubarb jelly, none of which were listed on the menu. As with the absent crispy egg, I wouldn’t have missed those pistachio elements if I hadn’t been led to expect them.

What there was on my plate I couldn’t fault at all. The sponge was incredibly light and, in deference to the original, in the right proportion to the good vanilla ice cream it encircled. All the rhubarb elements had just the right balance of sweet and tart. Altogether, the concept of this pudding and its execution, brought a smile to my face.

CHOCOLATE

Conversely, when my partner has a dish he loves, he’s more likely to have a look of quizzical consternation on his face rather than a smile. I think it means something like, ‘how can this possibly taste so good?’. To onlookers, this can be a bit disconcerting and it’s not unknown for vigilant restaurant staff to come over and ask if everything’s ok. I got to see that look at The Three Horseshoes when he ate his chocolate dessert.

The pudding was described as a 70% chocolate and passion fruit mousse with coconut dacquoise and passion fruit sorbet.

The intensely flavoured mousse, covered in a thin film of chocolate, was of the creamy and thick variety rather than light and airy and this was all to the good. At the bottom was a combination of passion fruit and, we think, coconut. I find very chocolatey puddings like this a bit too much, but for my partner it was perfect.

I really liked the accompanying passion fruit sorbet which seemed to me, with its velvety and rich texture, more like ice cream than sorbet.

Whichever it was, the balance between sweet and tart was well judged, as were the little spots of passion fruit gel.

WHY DID I STAY AWAY SO LONG?

After such an enjoyable meal, I really could have kicked myself for staying away from dinner at The Three Horseshoes for so long. While the menu format had changed since my last visit, I was happy to find that this was not to the detriment of the cooking which remains of a very high standard.

There was next to nothing to quibble about regarding the food on the plate which was, without exception, extremely good. Considering the quality of the ingredients and the skills and effort of the kitchen we thought the meal represented excellent value at just under £30 per person, excluding drinks.

The front of house team were friendly and efficient too (with a particular shout-out to Emma) on what seemed like a very busy evening.

Judging by the packed tables of diners enjoying the other great-looking dishes coming out of the kitchen, whether from the Signature menu, the grill or pub classics, there’s plenty of folk who appreciate just how good The Three Horseshoes Country Inn still is.

And I plan to join them much more often in future.

Highly recommended.