The Cross Keys

A welcoming reception from the friendly staff was the start to a lovely evening at The Cross Keys. Local beers on tap along with a favourite of mine Doom Bar and the usual suspects if you prefer draught or bottled lager or cider. An excitingly refreshing wine list with some more unusual offerings from which we had a delicious French white and a mellow Portuguese red.
The food menu is small but full of tasty offerings with a few specialities on the chalk board. Our had several chorizo risottos which were served with an unfortunately over cooked poached egg and I had sautéd chicken livers served on toasted ciabatta with black pudding and rocket. This was probably the tastiest chicken livers I have ever had!
For mains we had a couple of pork belly slabs served on creamy mash with a shard of crackling, an apricot stuffed sea bream wrapped in pancetta with roast potatoes and prawn butter and sausages (made by the butcher next door) and mash. Additional vegetables are essential but between four of us we shared two seasonal vegetable and one cauliflower cheese accompaniments.
To finish we shared a deliciously creamy, almost cheesy rice pudding and a chocolate pudding.
I really think that the ambience, staff, drinks and food deserved a 5 star review but unfortunately some of the cooking let them down. Over done poached eggs & fish, soft veggies, poor crackling and under rendered pork belly just took the edge off what would have been a fabulous meal. Also as the second to last table to leave we did get the feeling the staff were anxious to finish up.
However, none of these things detracted from a lovely meal, reasonably priced with great wine in a lovely venue. I recommend you try it for yourself!