William Sitwell reviews Bottle & Glass Inn: ‘I could literally eat this every day of my life’

The Boundary Commission constantly reviews the size and shape of Parliamentary constituencies, reporting their conclusions every five years but, really, they should focus on the country’s actual counties.

It’s high time we had a review of the nation’s shires based on things like style, prosperity and prejudice. Basically, the current map of counties was carved up by the Romans, fomented during the Anglo-Saxon period and then tweaked by the Normans. So it’s all wildly out of date and confusing.

I mean, there I was trooping along to South Oxfordshire (as its website puts it) to review an ancient pub called the Bottle & Glass Inn and thinking about nestling into a cosy old boozer surrounded by little country lanes and rolling meadows. Only to discover that it’s not really Oxfordshire at all, it’s Henley. Or ‘Henleyshire’ to be precise. It’s all A roads and formidable (firmly shut) gates, vast fancy houses and tons of shiny, heavy, monstrously expensive-looking cars.

Pity the poor thatched Bottle & Glass. Once, it was surrounded by Cotswoldy little hedges and unkempt grass untended by pipe-smoking, austere-looking, long-bearded men. You know those old photos where men lurk with old bicycles propped against walls, 150 years before the D-lock. Today, the pub, having endured centuries of ‘progress’, is now surrounded by neat gravel, clipped hedges, grey paving stones and lots of those expensive cars.

But it suffers it well. There’s a cosy bar at the front with a ragged stone floor and large leather sofas and a smarter restaurant in a modern extension – lots of glass and metal – at the back. The room is softened by wooden chairs and tables, the odd tall dresser and windowsills crammed with cookbooks.

There you’ll be very well looked after by eager, cheerful staff as you find a table among the locals, many of whom seem to be scruffy, tracksuited youths pretending they’re not very rich Russians.

The menu offered up snacks, to which we happily succumbed – very large and crunchy pork crackling with an apple purée, which I thought would have been a little better if slightly less puréed, green olives and tasty little ham hock croquettes.
My starter of deer croustade was an attractive rectangular cake of great texture and that richness that only venison can deliver. It sat under a scattering of refreshing pea shoots, blobs of decent roasted garlic mayo and a few white mushrooms which had been pickled. Or rather, made slimy.

My wife Emily was in raptures over a fishy version of a Caesar salad: a moreish pile of crisp lettuce, large croutons, whole anchovies, strips of Parmesan and a generously seasoned piece of mackerel on top. ‘I could literally eat this every day of my life,’ she declared. ‘And you shall, you shall. If that’s something that makes you happy, then I will endeavour to make it happen. Each and every day,’ I didn’t say.

We then shared a magnificent côte de boeuf – Hereford reared on a farm near Reading. It arrived sliced, well-rested, perfectly cooked and pink within, on a wooden board groaning with salad, chips and chimichurri. The latter was especially impressive. Hand-chopped, not lazily blended, it was so lively and vigorous we called for more, then more of it, before retreating for a final sip back in the bar.

The Bottle & Glass Inn is an heroic island of good old-fashioned warmth, flavour and charm, standing proud in 21st-century Henleyshire.

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