The Three Fishes describes itself as a “pub and restaurant”. It isn’t really. No-one is coming for a pint of bitter and packet of pork scratchings. Although, if they did, then the pork scratchings would probably be the best they’d ever eaten. What you actually have is a restaurant in a building that used to be a pub. And a really enjoyable restaurant at that, as you’d expect from any gaff run by Nigel Haworth. This is all about using local produce whenever they can, some of it from their own kitchen garden at the back of the car park. We’ve been for lunch a couple of times – once when it was part of the Michelin starred Northcote group and once since Nigel reopened it in his own right. This was the first time we’d been for dinner.
It’s a nice modern room – nothing “olde worlde” as you might think with a rural pub. And there’s attentive and friendly staff. Our only criticism is that the chairs are not that comfy - a consideration for our old bones. There’s two menu options. Firstly, “Farm to Fork” - a set no choice menu of five or eight courses. Or, a traditional three course “Choice” menu, offering around half a dozen items at each course. We went for the latter.
But, first, there’s bread. Slices of wholemeal and a lovely cheese bread. And there’s butter, parsley pesto and butter bean houmous for slathering over.
Broad beans, still with a little bite, were the stars of a well made risotto, properly moist but not swimming in liquid. It’s topped with a variety of things – more of that parsley pesto, crunchy samphire and a very seasonal pea puree. The other starter seemed more straightforward but it takes real skill to “do simple”. There’s a bed of black rice, on which sits a single large floret of cauliflower, covered with a very savoury yeast foam. It looks great – the black rice contrasting with the paleness of the cauli and the foam.
I always think of venison as something for autumn and winter but, with the awful summer we’ve had, I suppose it wasn’t out of place. There’s loin of Bambi, perfect at medium rare and deep flavours from some long cooked ragout. Alongside, a wedge of hispi cabbage, and a spoonful or two of mushroom ketchup . And it’s all brought together with a really flavoursome sauce. It needed a carb and a side order of really good “fat chips” did the job. Fish of the day was sea bass – a nice thick fillet. No crispy skin but, otherwise, perfectly cooked. There’s delicious local new potatoes and a single spring onion in tempura batter. It’s brought together with dill flavoured butter and a pretty much perfect hollandaise sauce. Like the other dish, it needed something more to round it off. In this case, a contribution to the “five a day” came from battered courgette chunks in a tomatoey sauce. In truth, there need to be more of the sauce and smaller chunks of courgette as they were a tad undercooked.
Desserts presented a dilemma. There were two that we both wanted to try. Solution – order both, put them in the middle of the table and we dive in. A damson soufflé was simply outstanding - light as a feather and packed full of fruity flavour. Wimberry pie turned out to be a cheffy interpretation of “pie”. It was a delicate construction of very thin layers of pastry, interleaved with sweet/sharp wimberries and cream flavoured with meadowsweet.
We finished with good espresso which came with a two bite Eccles Cake, served warm and a chocolate truffle. We asked ourselves was this meal worth the hour’s drive to get here. And would it be worth a return visit. Yes, it was and yes, it would be. It had been a lovely evening.
