Chimes

Chimes
Churton St
£35
This is a delightful and quintessentially English dining room. It’s not formal. It’s rustic with a great skylight allowing soft even light into the room. The tables are all wood. They serve cider on tap and beer in a bottle. They actually call them selves a cider-wine bar! I would have liked a starter and gone with the baked Somerset brie, but I went straight for the lamb shank. It was very good, but I have two issues. The gravy (red current and rosemary) was on the lamb and I like it to the side. My mistake. Now, mashed potatoes. These were sweet, and I fear they actually added sugar to them. One of our guests said you always add sugar to smashed spuds. This is a travesty. Garlic, butter, milk, herbs I can see; but sugar, non, no, nada, niet, nien. OK, you get the idea. I will give them the benefit of the doubt because the sweetness might (might) have been onions with a bit of cider which would make sense. I would go back with gravy on the side and dry as cider smashed spuds. Potatoes have such a hard life. MP

Question What do you do with a hyper soon-to-be 5 year old who was ready for garlic bread? Answer – Chimes. God bless them this is one of the things on their menu. Our guests helped us to review. Nephew and I had ciabatta because we weren’t in a meat or pie frame of mind. They were as good as ciabatta can be but it isn’t what Chimes is good at so it serves me right. What they are good at is pies and our guest reviewer has only good things to say about the fidgety pie because it was full of gammon and delicious juices. Our other guest reviewer gives the thumbs up to the lamb. Everyone tasted MP’s excellent super dry cider. I slurped some ginger beer and regretted not plumping for starters and pies. English Restaurants are few and far between so eating here is a national duty as well as a pleasure so we’d better go back and fly the flag(s) soon. Until then, may the cider always flow.
HP