The Swan Inn, MK Village

We actually found this beautiful restaurant by mistake whilst distributing our copies of MK Food Reviews last year. After entering the pub at the time, I simply knew I had to eat here. If the food could closely match the décor, then we would be in for a treat.  

The Swan is part of the Little Gems Country Dining company which was formed in 2006 and has just three pubs. This is not a chain. Make no mistake, the managers make the decisions regarding their menus with the emphasis very much on British food that is not overly presented.

We booked a table for two on a busy Saturday evening for 8pm.

Décor

The Swan in Milton Keynes Village is well designed with an open fire and stacked bar welcoming guests as you walk through the main entrance. This is a homely venue for all the family to enjoy. The ceilings have plenty of old beams holding building together in an almost untouched style. We noticed that the wooden tables and patterned chairs were all different to each other and therefore giving each table an unique character. Keep an eye out for the random bucket of bright red tomatoes. They looked plump and ready to eat. I am not sure why they were in the main eating area; maybe The Swan were showing off their produce - so they should!

Service

We were shown from the bar area to our table by Tony, a young and enthusiastic gentleman. He took our order for wine whilst Tyrone the manager listed the specials.

Throughout the evening Tony and Tyrone with the help of a young waitress teamed up to deliver a very well-worked service - they even cut the fresh bread themselves as and when you require it. The three of them ran the show and a quick glance around showed all of the guests were happy.

Food

The menu is simple yet so incredibly inviting and has little, happy faces next to the healthier and lighter options.

Starters

Before our starters we tried the warm bread with a side of olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and pesto. I will now try to make this at home - delightful! We also ordered a side of parsnip puree, which tasted wonderful. This is cooked overnight to ensure the textures and flavours are just right.

I was drawn to the Scottish mussels with shallot, garlic and parsley in wine sauce (£6.00) also available as a main (£10.50). The mussels were plump and the portion generous. The only let down for me was the sauce could have been slightly thicker. That did not stop me from eating the entire dish and I soaked up the remainder of the tasty juice with the delicious and soft fresh bread.

My guest was in an adventurous mood and pointed to the Somerset Brie and crispy rocket roll with homemade red onion jam (£5.00). Not a massive admirer of onions, my guest nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed this light starter. I had a taster and I can confirm this was an excellent choice. Imagine the texture of a Chinese spring roll with Brie and you will know where my thoughts are coming from.

My guest sided with the free range corn fed chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella and wrapped with pancetta on a roasted risotto (£13.50) for her main course. The risotto was changed for mash, as my guest is not too keen on peppers. A well-presented and pretty dish, it smelt gorgeous too.

I opted for a 17oz rib eye, 32 day aged Aberdeenshire Angus steak (medium-rare) accompanied by a flat mushroom, roasted tomato and fat chips (£17.00). The tomato had a beautiful texture and I just knew it had been oven baked for a considerable time. The tender and juicy steak came with Café de Paris butter, lightly spiced and containing parsley - this was amazing. The chips are out of this world too – chunky, fluffy and very tasty.

Both main courses were superbly presented.

The puddings are quite limited but I did smile when I read the comments at the bottom of the menu – “Fish contains bones, puddings contain calories.” You have a choice of sticky toffee pudding, crème brulee, dark chocolate brownie and hazelnut ice cream, home made ice creams and sorbets. With neither of us massive sweet lovers, we instead opted to share a cheese board with water biscuits, house chutney and warm bread (£7). We had a lovely selection of cheeses sampled well with port.

The Swan is, put quite simply, a brilliant restaurant - well maintained, friendly and welcoming with the highest of standards throughout. 2009 will see my friends, family and I here often.

Why not try their Saturday breakfast (Available 12 - 5pm on Saturdays). Country sausage, bacon, free-range egg, homemade baked beans, black pudding, roast plum tomatoes and toast. Tea or coffee. (£6.50).

The Swan take cash, credit cards and home-grown vegetables….seriously – just ask!

The Swan has also been lauded for managing to retain its local clientele will also operating a high-end restaurant but unfortunately this means smartly dressed diners have to run the gauntlet of challenging looks from the gaggle of hard-drinking smokers gathered around the front entrance. The welcome inside was hardly better; with a rather indifferent barman casually thumbing the direction to the restaurant as he pored the next pint of lager. Despite having booked two weeks in advance when we reached the restaurant they had no record of it but were ‘lucky’ that they had a table spare.

Although it was mid-week the place was nearly full so it obviously has a good reputation but unfortunately only two waiting staff so service was quite slow. We ordered a chicken and leek terraine and a mushroom tapenade to start with sea bass in a cream sauce and slow-cooked belly pork and chunky chips to follow. As it was a special occasion we ordered two glasses of champagne which were priced at £7.00each on the main menu but, it subsequently turned out, priced at £7.50 on the wine list and charged to our bill as £15.00,not £14.00.

If we were to put our ‘Masterchef’ heads on (and at these prices who else are they aiming for but that Masterchef generation) then he chicken and leek terraine definitely needed more seasoning and the leeks were under-cooked. The mushroom tapenade was serviceable enough but came on a disc of white bread that had been over-toasted so that every attempt to cut it resulted in a small explosion of hard bread fragments across the table.. Both dishes were accompanied by a small pile of very dry rocket leaves which were just screaming out for a drizzle of olive oil or balsamic vinegar.

On to the main courses and the sea bass was delightfully cooked although the sauce was very rich to the extent that my wife decided against a desert afterwards. My ‘Jimmy Buttler’s’ slow-cooked belly pork came with a very tasty sauce on a bed of new potatoes which were delightful. Sadly the pork itself hadn’t been slow cooked properly and was tough that it was unmanageable without a steak knife and I eventually gave up on it. The chunky chips however would have passed the Heston Blumental ‘thrice cooked chips’ test being golden brown and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside and these were probably the highlight of the meal. The meal was accompanied by a reasonably priced Orvietto which proved to be good value.

Our empty plates  seemed to sit in front of us for an age before I eventually stacked them on an empty adjacent table which finally prompted the waitress into action. For desert I had a pear and almond frangipan which was delightful but would have tasted better had I not had to clean dirt my spoon before starting and it is this sort of lack of attention to detail that lets the restaurant down.

We finished with a cappuccino and liquor coffee made with some pretty watery single cream (if it was cream at all) which was a long way removed from the concept of a gloriously creamy floater coffee which is what I’d thought I’d ordered. All in the bill came to £90 for two of us and even after allowing for the champagne and the desert that had been provided free of charge because of the inedible pork it was still a whopping £70 for two courses, wine and coffee. For that sort of price I think we’d have expected something special but the service was below par and although the menu was good the cooking was generally very ordinary with a couple of mistakes thrown in. 

Sadly too many pub restaurants seem to think they can just throw on some grey-green paint, put out some of those minimalist square oak-veneer tables and call themselves a gastro-pub in order to charge people £35 each for two courses with wine. Unless they actually deliver on the food and service, customers will not come back and eventually, when reviews like this start to accumulate they will stop coming altogether. Fine Diner (email address supplied) posted November 3, 2009