‘England’s best pub’ is just an hour from Wales – ‘massive’ cooking and fantastic beer garden

It’s an 18th-century pub on a hill in an idyllic village in the heart of the countryside – and it’s now been named “almost certainly the best pub in England” by one of the country’s leading food critics.

The Horse and Groom was already located in what was described by Savills last year as one of the UK’s most “desirable” villages, Bourton-on-the-Hill in the Cotswolds. This is just over an hour from South East Wales and other parts of the Welsh border with England.

And now the pub is making waves under its new owners, Nathan Eades and Liam Goff, who previously had another restaurant, in Cheltenham, named as one of Britain’s top 100 gastropubs in 2024.

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And given a new boost, Giles Coren, seasoned restaurant critic for The Times, rang up with his family and scored the pub 10 out of 10 for its cooking, service and country house setting with less than 400 people.

Coren says he and his family enjoyed a “huge” meal, including appetizers of Atlantic shrimp cocktail (“two layers of fatty, flavorful wild shrimp in a cut-glass whiskey glass,” monkfish scampi ( “freshly breaded and toasted with a dark golden crumb”) and scotch egg (“shiny like a brass finish, warm, porky and sweet, the yolk a sun gel”).

He described the double main cheeseburger as a “masterpiece of its kind” and a ham hock as “Jesus rising again on the third day”.

The Horse and Groom was named Good Pub Guide Pub of the Year in 2016, so it’s no stranger to praise or a high profile. But Coren had said at the time that while it was “a cozy place with amazing views and nice people”, he felt the food was “pretty average”.

But he said that with Eades and Goff at the helm, the pub is now, “with their huge cooking set in the ramshackle old space and fantastic gardens, almost certainly the best pub in England”.

He wrote: “Not much has changed inside, nor should it. It’s lived-in and lovely, but on a rare warm summer day we walked into the two-story garden, with its mature trees and shrubs and overgrown lawns, and… we climbed onto the high lawn and a picnic table not too splattered with guano under a tree.

“Eating out I can grab or go. But I eat under a tree – the dappled shade, the birdsong, the faint hum of insects, the view of yellow stone buildings, old slate roofs, bent chimneys, cobalt skies, fields slowly browning to harvest. , all framed by a good, sharp hedge – which is really alive.

The review by Coren, who is the brother of TV presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell and the brother-in-law of comedian David Mitchell, marks a significant change from his 2016 review of the same pub, which he then described as an “unpretentious, brightly lit. place without the mean feeling that pubs around these parts usually have”.

Although he acknowledged the good cooking of the time, he felt the atmosphere diminished as he left the “vibes” of the “small front bar” for the “modestly furnished dining area”.

He previously gave the establishment a score of seven out of 10 for cooking, six out of 10 for table service and just five out of 10 for atmosphere eight years ago, so his scores have changed dramatically this time around.

Speaking to the Cotswold Journal recently, new owner Nathan Eades said: “We haven’t done any seismic, all we’ve really done is add a new coat of paint. We also tried to tidy it up and throw away as much as possible. let’s make love in the pub as much as we can, to be honest.

“We have a good wine and a good environment and we’ve been very encouraged by what we’ve seen so far. It’s been a good first few days and hopefully it will only get better.”

What’s on the menu at The Horse and Groom?

Here are some sample menu items at Horse and Groom

Beginners

Atlantic Prawn Cocktail, Bread & Butter Milk Soda, Bloody Mary Sauce £11.50

Marinated Evesham tomatoes, bitter leaves, burrata, basil pesto £11.50

Monkfish scampi, saffron aioli, pickled shallot and watercress salad £11.50

24 Months Rare Comte and Donnington Ale on OandB Sourdough Toast £9.50

Beef tenderloin carpaccio, wasabi mayonnaise, parmesan and arugula salad £11

Main dishes

24 Month Comte Cheese Souffle, House Salad £19

Double Cheeseburger, Otis & Belle Brioche Bun, Home Fries £18

Huntsham Farm sausage, cream potatoes, buttered cavolo nero, onion sauce £21

Glazed ham hock for two, cacklebean eggs, home fries £19.50pp

Desserts

Black treacle and date pudding, clotted cream £9.50

Tiramisu, our style £10.50

Lemon posset, strawberry compote, crushed meringue £10

Affogato, pistachio biscotti £7