Excellent food and service, if madly over-styled, at The Gardeners Arms in Ardingly

Flaming good

Throw road diversions into the equation and sat-nav is rendered sat-naff. Our journey to Ardingly should have been a pleasant rural jaunt, but once we passed through the village of Lindfield under instruction from Sally Satnav, the charm begun to wear off. It wasn’t helped by the lack of a mobile signal with which to call The Gardeners Arms and inform them of our late arrival either. But we persevered, eventually ignoring her instructions and using instinct, we finally got there and only 20 minutes late.

Fortunately, we managed to get a call through so they were aware of our delay. Sadly, they had not got that our online booking was for three persons and not two, and they were rammed. No worries, they said, and found us a suitable place where we had plenty of space. The Gardeners Arms is a pretty old pub that has been respectfully enlarged and refurbished. We were pleased to see a decent range of ales and ciders, and the blackboard of specials certainly added to the fare offered on the full menu.

Somehow the journey had increased our appetite, perhaps Lindfield crosses a time zone and we did that three times, anyway, we all three fancied the full works. Beers, gin and ginger beer in hand we headed into the appealing menu. Ms C spotted a baked camembert that took her fancy. I reckon it was meant for two but she chose it anyway and with only a little help from us she managed to do it justice, although it was plenty for two. It was spiked with thyme and garlic, wrapped in greaseproof paper and baked to an unctuous gooeyness with plenty of bread to dip in it and a decent chutney on the side.

Ms M has a thing about choosing vegetarian dishes even though she is an out and out omnivore. This time it paid off with a good, if slightly loose, red pepper mousse, served again with good bread and a well dressed salad. I gave it a go and liked it, the sweet pepper flavour hitting the right spot.

I decided to start with an Asian duck salad, thinking it would be a light beginning for my choice of main. It was rather a large salad, crisp and Asian in style with a sweet honey dressing and lots of shredded Peking-style duck. It was certainly big enough for a main course though and took some time to eat. Not a complaint, merely an observation.

Ms M moved on to duck breast with Dauphinoise potatoes and a side of cauliflower cheese. She loved it, good duck she declared if perhaps not as crisp a skin as she would have liked. She didn’t much like the spiced orange chutney on the side but Ms M did, so she polished that off.

Her dish of poussin and chips was simple but effective and came on a wooden board which she didn’t much like as she said she was losing out on the chicken juices. It did look good though.

I chose the venison shank pie with cauliflower cheese and red cabbage. Madly, mine also came on a wooden board in three separate containers, all on some fake newspaper. Here I started to worry. How was I meant to eat it? I really should have demanded a plate but the busy staff were working so hard, so I tucked in, taking a forkful from the pie, then the cauliflower and the cabbage in turn. It was a slow and laborious way to dine and pretty silly.

Each part was excellent. The pie was generous, the pastry cooked on the meat as it should be, the red cabbage a good balance of sweet and sour with lots of butter too and the cauliflower cheese pretty perfect. It was the silly over-styled presentation that I disliked. Give me a plate please as pie has no place on a chopping board, after all, I did not want to instigate a tsunami of rich red wine gravy.

I was pretty full after that but my eyes are bigger than my belly, so I had two scoops of excellent ice cream. Ms C went to the specials board and had the apple and red berry crumble with custard that she said was first class. It was a big portion too!

Ms M chose the pudding that had fascinated us all evening as it sailed past our table. A raspberry ripple crème brûlée arrived in a cup and saucer and in flames. The sugar being brûléed en route by a shot of booze. It was clever, stunning to look at and delicious too, with three excellent langues de chat on the side.

Apart from the gimmicky presentation this was a great meal served in trencherman portions and for a sensible price, with three drinks each it came to around £33 a head which seemed more than fair. The service was exemplary too, friendly and polite and efficient – we just need to persuade them to ditch the silliness in presentation.
The Gardeners Arms Bar & Restaurant, Selsfield Road, Ardingly, West Sussex, RH17 6TJ, 01444 892328, gardenersarms.ardingly.co.uk

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