The Royal Oak

Location: Yattendon (outside of London)
Cuisine: British / Seasonal
Average price: £40
Website: www.royaloakyattendon.co.uk
Booking recommended

Based in Yattendon, a quaint village not far from Newbury, The Royal Oak is very nearly everything a village B&B should be. Run by a family and small staff, the warm and cosy atmosphere invites you in as soon as you open the door, helped in no small part by the roaring log fires. We stayed for one night to experience the restaurant, the accommodation, and shooting package.

Having arrived at midday, our first experience was lunch, in the Michelin Guide listed restaurant. Service may have taken slightly longer than anticipated, but the resulting meal was more than worth the wait. The beef neck fillet resting on a soft bed of luxuriant mashed potato fell apart at the slightest touch of the fork, and the Jerusalem artichoke risotto had both subtle and strong flavours simultaneously. A surreptitious glance at the other customer’s dishes made it easy to understand the reputation they’ve cultivated for themselves.

The dinner service was of a similarly good standard, with delightful starters and a bountiful steak and chips for mains. The wine list was extensive and the service was comfortably informal yet prompt. The proprietor was also not shy to come and have a chat, which leant a pleasant familiarity to the experience.

Recently affiliated with the Royal Berkshire Shooting School, The Royal Oak was able to offer us a package which involved an hour’s private clay pigeon shooting with an instructor, a field sports magazine and a champagne reception upon return (which was helpfully offered to be brought to our room so we could relax after the shoot). All at a very reasonable price. I would highly recommend this to anyone – apart from a slightly bruised shoulder it was an invigorating hour, with a variety of traps to vary the flight and direction of the clay pigeons. Shotgun cartridges were purchased separately once there, but for the price of a round of drinks we shot as many as we could in the hour.

Of course, there are some negatives. A main and its own with a beer for lunch will set you back around £25-30 per person. Dinner with starters, mains, dessert and wine will likely stretch more to the region of £50-70 each, depending on your self-restraint when it comes to the wine list. All of this, coupled with the cost of the journey there and back from London may well put similar twenty-something’s such as myself off the trip down, and I wouldn’t blame them with such a cornucopia of excellent restaurants on the doorstep in our bustling capital.

Overall, I would highly recommend taking the shooting package. We were the first guests to take The Royal Oak up on the shooting and accommodation package and were treated fantastically. A restaurant visit on a Saturday or Sunday is most definitely worth a trip for a real food enthusiast, but for me personally it’s too much of an expenditure for one meal. We paid £200 each for the room, shooting package and complimentary breakfast (also good, no surprise there) and £60 each or so for both lunch and dinner.

This should be experienced as an event, a romantic mini-break from the rat race and most importantly a true chance to simply relax.