EAT > The Loch & The Tyne (17/20) Its a little out of the way

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If you are not a Windsor local there is a good chance you wont have found this delightful pub in Old Windsor, its not somewhere you would stumble over. About 25 miles out of central London (an hour in the car), it is not a usual place for travellers but as we found out very close to Heathrow so it turned out to be the perfect place for Sunday lunch.

With a long haul flight from Heathrow to Melbourne via Dubai looming there was one last day left in the UK and good friends Chris and Cass suggested rather than meeting in SoHo and then having to traipse to Heathrow, instead we meet in Old Windsor and have a really good British pub lunch.

The ‘pub lunch’ is one of those thoroughly British things, a meal designed to last from the late morning to the mid afternoon. Comfortably staggered so that your drinking matches the food and consumption stays in a nice balance.

Arriving at the ‘The Loch & The Tyne’ on a cold wet October day (with all our suitcases), we were greeted (warmly but somewhat nervously), by the manager. It turned out he was worried we had a booking to stay in the rooms above the hotel. We then dealt with a mixup in the booking but all of it quickly and smoothly looked after.

From the moment we arrived and we were made to feel exceptionally very welcome, don’t mind the mixup with the booking lets get you a drink and we will find a way to make the tables work out, (this is British hospitality at its finest).

The Loch and The Tyne is a British pub serving classic British pub food refined with luxurious ingredients to the highest levels of culinary and service quality. It is a stylish room with comfortable furniture that feels a natural extension of your home without being overly posh or sterile. Led by Executive Chef Adam Handling (who also has restaurants in Covent Garden and Cornwall), it exudes an atmosphere that feels both comfortable and a little up market but not stuck up.

Adam Handling is something of a restaurant wunderkind, he started his career as an apprentice at 16 at the Gleneagles Hotel (you know the one with the golf course…) in Scotland. He went on to become the first ever apprentice chef, and then Fairmont resorts youngest ever Head Chef. He won awards (Scottish Chef of the Year, British Culinary Federation Chef of the Year, Food and Travel Awards Chef of the Year. If all that isn’t enough he was one of four British chefs to create an official recipe for the coronation of King Charles III.

Starting with a Bloody Mary at the bar (just the right amount of spice and heat), we had a table in no time and settled in for slow comfortable Sunday lunch.

The Sunday Roast lunch menu (2 courses £48, 3 courses £58) is made up of some smaller plates such as a smart beef tartare with pickled mushroom and crispbread or a lovely twist on a black pudding sausage roll with brown sauce, the cheese and leek tart is really tasty and the burrata with bbq peach and wild nettle pesto is superb.

The ‘roast’ options include half a chicken with lemon and thyme, beef wellington with horseradish, pork belly with sage and apple, there are also fish and vegetarian options. For those who need steak they have a sirloin or ribeye option served with béarnaise or peppercorn sauce for an additional £15 supplement.

Deserts offered a King’s Trifle, sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream, strawberry and mint pavlova and a nice looking cheese board. Or if you have time you order a Tarte Tatin to share, it does take an extra 45 minutes but where are you going and you need time to let the main course settle down.

The food at The Loch & The Tyne is very tasty and beautifully presented, the wine list is quite reasonable with a few interesting wines at fair prices. But it is the service that made this place special, not formal but appropriately attentive this is an excellent way to spend a few delightful hours before our very long haul flight back to Australia.