Restaurants

Restaurant

Deborah Ross

24 November 2007

The Pheasant, Ballinger Common, Great Missenden; tel. 01494 837236

Inside we go, where the décor is obviously striving towards chic, perhaps overly so, with slate on the walls and a chrome bar and oversized wine glasses and plates that are large and square (why does everyone seem to have a problem with round plates, all of a sudden?). There are many photographs of hats on the walls because, it turns out, the newish owner, Jane King, used to be a milliner who made it to the top, millinery-speaking, with her hats being for sale in all the big West End stores, but gave it all up to take over the Pheasant and open the restaurant, now called Hatters.

We’re asked if we’d like to sit in the conservatory, or at one of the tables in the pub. ‘The pub,’ we chorus, quickly. This, of course, doesn’t mean we have anything against Jim, who is so misunderstood, particularly by shirtlifters and poofs, who just don’t get his sense of humour.

The menu is honest and true, offering good, solid pub nosh favourites — sausage and mash with red wine gravy, burger with hand-cut fries, full mixed grill with field mushrooms, all from meat sourced locally — as well as a couple of less expected offerings, such as scallops with crab risotto. We order from our waitress — the daughter of the owner, I think — who is mortified when our bread rolls turn out to be still frozen in the middle. ‘I can’t believe we did that. I am so embarrassed,’ she keeps saying. She is so mortified that I wish I’d simply eaten them and then said, ‘I do love a roll that is frozen in the middle.’