The Plowden Arms, Shiplake

The team at the Plowden Arms left the pub at the start of April 2017. The pub reopened under new management with a different menu, but then closed for good. As of spring 2024 it is now open as The Plough, reviewed here.

This week’s review is the first ever of a restaurant outside the RG1 postcode; scandalous I know, but there’s more to living in this little town than easy access to the Oracle, Friar Street and Broad Street. So rather than try another city centre restaurant I hopped in the car on a chilly weekday evening and made for the Plowden Arms, a proper little old pub on the road from Reading to Henley. I have to say, I love a good pub; it’s one of the things (along with queuing, not to mention sighing and shooting evil looks at queue jumpers) that Britain does better than anywhere else in the world.

The Plowden Arms has everything you expect from a classic English country pub: low beams, an open fire and a freezing loo (the better the pub, the worse the toilet in my experience). The fire was lit when we arrived, and the room was cosy, if a tad empty. There were only three occupied tables, and it was a bit sad to see they weren’t busier. Some pubs are really restaurants in disguise – all posh furniture and pretensions – and some pubs don’t really know what they want to be, like boozers going through a midlife crisis. The Plowden isn’t like that; for better or worse it is a pub that serves food, and the dark furniture and slightly uncomfortable banquettes were testimony to that.

We were greeted warmly and given menus but they only tell half the story at the Plowden. The blackboard up by the bar listed loads of specials – four starters and four mains, almost as many dishes as were on the printed menu. Our waitress – who was nothing short of charming all evening – told us that these change every couple of days. I can’t tell you what a good signal this sends out. It says that the chef is using what’s fresh and seasonal, being inventive, always changing and always improving things. Why don’t more restaurants do this? Even the most high end restaurants in the centre of Reading rarely offer more than one special.

Overall, it was one of those menus where you want to order everything and know you can’t. It’s worth pointing out how reasonable it is too – the starters hover around the £7.50 mark, few mains are over £15. Looking at the flip side of the printed menu made the choice even more difficult – a whole extra section of “Drinking accompaniments and simple dishes”, all of which were just as tempting again.

Whilst agonising over the menu we ordered one of the drinking accompaniments, a salt cod scotch egg, to give us something to snack on as we made up our minds. This was a lovely amuse bouche, if you like, nice runny yolk with a soft layer of fish and a tart, fresh tomato sauce underneath. A good start, although I confess I prefer a sausagemeat scotch egg for juiciness, and the salt cod (ironically) didn’t taste that strongly seasoned.

When the starters arrived there was definitely a bit of food envy and I also fancied stealing the vintage plates. The beetroot and blue cheese pithivier, from the specials menu, was the favourite. I know beetroot and goat’s cheese has become a menu cliché across the country, but pairing beetroot with blue cheese was a masterstroke – the sweet beetroot against the salty tang of the blue cheese was a fantastic combination, and one I wasn’t used to. The pastry was crumbly and buttery, and I simultaneously wished the dish had been twice as big and knew that the flavours were so rich and intense that more would have been overwhelming.

PithivierThe other starter, from the a la carte menu, was billed as “hashed lamb with charred bread” and is apparently based on a dish by Mrs Beeton. It was less successful, although that might be partly because I didn’t quite know what to expect. What I got was a Kilner jar of slow cooked pieces of lamb in a rich dark gravy with what looked like haricot beans. The charred bread was toast, for better or for worse. The lamb was topped by tiny fronds of little salad which didn’t add much. All in all it was more interesting than it was delicious, though I didn’t mind it. I was expecting something a little less sloppy and more spreadable, so maybe the mistake was mine. It was probably the only misfire of the evening.

Lamb

The mains were also a study in contrasts. The slow cooked ham hock with mashed potatoes and a sherry and mushroom sauce (from the a la carte) was huge. I mean, absolutely enormous. The ham hock was a whole hock, bone and all, the size of a lamb shank – so big that it was almost intimidating when set down in front of me. The meat was perfect – soft, pink, no hint of grim wobbliness – and it fell away from the bone with convenient cleanness. The mash was one of the best I’ve tasted – rich, creamy and smooth, the texture just right. The sauce was equally impressive, somehow both sweet and salty, bringing the whole dish together. It was all very substantial but also the kind of dish you can’t bring yourself to stop eating, even if you’re ready to pop by the end.

HockThe other main, from the set menu, was sea trout with celeriac pureé, samphire, new potatoes and a clam and chive cream sauce. Sounds like a lot of different things going on but it was as delicate and precise as the ham hock was hearty and primitive. Every component was perfect, and every component worked with the rest – the sizeable fillet fresh, subtle and falling into flakes, the little bundle of samphire underneath it with just enough crunch, the sauce again creamy and intense – powerful enough to set off against the trout without drowning what can be quite an understated fish. This is a kitchen that knows how to do sauces so good that you slightly regret the fact that this is a restaurant that doesn’t bring you bread to mop up the rest with. That’s about the only criticism I can come up with about the mains, which tells you a lot.

Sadly driving meant we couldn’t make the most of the wine list. The wines by the glass – between us we had a Chilean merlot and a French pinot noir – were safe and tasty but not wildly exciting. It’s not by any means a big wine list and this did seem a little jarring given the undoubted quality of the food they are serving. Perhaps this is another sign that this is a pub that serves food rather than a restaurant, but I still felt a little disappointed by that.

When the first two courses are that good, dessert is inevitable. As I’ve said previously, I do like a school dinner dessert and that made it impossible to resist the jam roly poly. It was exactly how you would want it to be – a classic example of the genre, only ever so slightly refined. So the slice was lovely and dense, the poly (the roly? where does the name come from anyway? I bet the Plowden Arms probably knows) was beautifully jammy and not overly sweet, but the slice was also just the right size and the custard surrounding it was wonderfully light, almost like a crème anglaise. This was like a school dinner at a school much better than the one I’d gone to.

Rolypoly

Again, the other dessert was about as different as you can get. It was described as chocolate mousse and gingerbread biscuit with hazelnut and orange cream but it was so much more than that. The cream was between layers of ginger biscuit, like a dense millefeuille, and gave me the hugely satisfying experience of whacking it with a spoon until the biscuit (not too dense, not too delicate) broke up into bits small enough to eat. The chocolate mousse wasn’t really mousse. Instead it was a dark quenelle of what seemed more like ganache – intense, smooth, glossy. Like the pithivier it was a portion which looked too small before you started it but which you realised was just right once you’d finished it. This is no mean feat in a kitchen, every bit as much of a talent as changing your menu several times a week or making sauces that knock people’s socks off.

I haven’t said enough about the service, which was lovely: friendly and informal but also knowledgeable and polished. Everything about how we were looked after was spot on – from laying and relaying the table to serving from one side without leaning over you (it might sound like a small thing but it’s one of my pet hates). By the end I was sorry to leave and faintly aggrieved that there were so few diners that night.

The bill for three courses for two people (plus that scotch egg), three glasses of wine and numerous soft drinks was £80. I don’t know anywhere in town where I could eat that quality (and quantity!) of food for that amount, though of course it’s tempered a little by the effort of getting out into the sticks. That said, by the end of the meal I was itching to come back and already planning a return visit – it’s the sort of place where I could easily see myself settling in by the open fire with the Sunday papers.

When I think back on it, more than anything, I think the most impressive thing about the Plowden was the sheer range of cooking on display. I felt like we almost sampled two different meals – one hearty, warming and enormous, one clever, dainty and delicate. To find a restaurant that can do one of those things is a wonderful discovery, to find a cosy pub that can manage both is verging on miraculous. So yes, I loved the Plowden Arms. Can you tell? Food this good, this reasonably priced, this clever and this well served should be eaten by a lot more people, and I hope if nothing else my review might help to do something about that.

The Plowden Arms – 8.7
Shiplake Cross, Henley On Thames, RG9 4BX
0118 9402794

http://www.plowdenarmsshiplake.co.uk/

13 thoughts on “The Plowden Arms, Shiplake

  1. Molly

    High praise and lovely photo’s of some great looking plates – looks like I’ll have to get my passport and venture out of RG1 🙂
    Thanks for the review !

  2. Baliero

    Haven’t been to the Plowden Arms since 1991 (yes, really), but this review has really put it on my culinary radar. Will be visiting at the earliest opportunity.

  3. Hi there – The Plowden is my local and, since it was taken over by the current couple almost 2 years ago, has been an absolute gem. The landlord and head chef trained and worked with some of the biggest names in fine dinning, and it really shows in all but the generous portion sizes! One thing though, it’s definitely a restaurant in a pub rather than ‘a pub that serves food’. Sure you can just have a pint or two, but on a weekend lunch/evening you’ll likely be standing, as the tables will be reserved for dinners – the quality of the offering means it’s very popular. Taxi from central Reading about £12. I’ve been lucky enough to a lot of quality restaurants in and around Reading and London, and can hand on heart say bang for buck that The Plowden serves the best food in the best atmosphere across Reading and across South Oxfordshire.

  4. David

    A tip for a great summer’s day out (Ok, we’ll have to wait a few months now, but here goes…): Try another of Reading’s well-kept secrets, the boat from Caversham Bridge. Think it still leaves daily at 11.00 in summer. Get off at Shiplake Lock, have a long and leisurely lunch at the Plowden and walk back. You know you want to!

  5. Tessa

    I had a roast lunch there some time (1-2 years ago) back and it was one of the worst meals I’d ever had the misfortune to have to pay for. Never want to go back.

    1. That’s unfortunate! They’ve been under new management for 2 years, but I have to say you’re the only person I’ve ever encountered who has a bad word to say about the food. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.

  6. MeganG

    I’ve wanted to go here since it made the top of your rankings and today was the day; it didn’t disappoint. Delicate starters, hearty mains and indulgent puddings were well judged and attractively served. Orwells remains my favourite restaurant in this area but the Plowden Arms comes a close second.

  7. bluemondayuk

    Ate in the Plowden today, partly down to the review on here. I must say the food was absolutely divine – succulent lamb sweetbread for starter, spinach pie for main and a truly exceptional cheeseboard for pud (how often are they pedestrian? Five cheeses on here, and proper good ones too) – and was worth every mouthful. The other seven in my group tried a good range from the menu and there was praise all round for each dish, a real rarity. Our waitress was very good and the two ales (Brakspear Bitter and Ringwood Boondoggle) were in good form.

    Two small points were that the wait between courses was fairly long. Obviously the food is freshly made and that’s fair enough – you expect a a bit of a gap – but I get the feeling the kitchen was struggling a little in turnaround times (though it should be noted that the food once arrived was top-notch). Also, whilst the mains portions are decent, one or two perhaps could have done with a little extra filler…call me old fashioned but a dollop of some spud-based side rarely goes amiss with a gravy/sauce based dish.

    Overall, this is the possibly finest upmarket pub dining I’ve come across for a reasonable price (me and the missus did two and a half courses each, plus a couple of ales, for fifty quid) and it’s a real must-visit.

  8. Baliero Blue

    Another superb visit to see Plowden George, despite having to battle through centre of town on a Friday night due to (a) closed Reading Bridge and (b) tragic accident which closed M4. Relaxing evening, with delicious food as usual. Something for meat-loving adults, veg-loving adults and kids too. Totally agree with the cheeseboard comment above – lovely. Our bill came to nearer £100 mainly cos I can’t say no to copious amounts of wine and secondly because my older child eats adult portions like a gannet!

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