Hind's Head
High Street Bray Berkshire SL6 2AB.
Just yards from Heston Blumenthal's triple-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant is this more laid-back sister eatery, a handsome Tudor pub with a very good restaurant tucked away behind a velvet curtain. If you just want a frisson of the Blumenthal experience, you could drop in for a pint and a snack in the low-ceilinged 15th century bar, where the Duke of Edinburgh is alleged to have enjoyed his 1952 stag do. But the restaurant, presided over by Kevin Love, is perhaps Bray's best-value place to eat, with an ambition far beyond most gastropubs. Food historians from Hampton Court Palace have been consulted for the menu, which includes a medieval-sounding oxtail and kidney pudding, a 15th-century recipe for caramelised butter loaf, and a 17th-century 'quaking pudding'. Plus there are Heston's now famous triple-cooked chips – a snip at £3.50. But not yer average pub grub experience.
