The Harwood Arms | Independent on Sunday review

“This is the only review column in the country to my knowledge that asks the restaurateur or chef, post-review, for a statement of intent. One of the interesting, and sometimes heartbreaking, things about doing this is how so many people struggle to actually explain what they are trying to do. At times, it's PR-speak, or worse, business- management lingo (who's to know that KPI are Key Performance Indicators and what do they have to do with restaurants anyway?). But every now and then, you get the whole package: people who know what they want to do, and who simply go and do it. This is why I like The Harwood Arms so much. It looks like any smart contemporary gastropub, with its stripped woods, pale olive colours, blackboard specials, and bare tables. But it has real presence, personality and professionalism, being a joint venture between the Michelin-starred Brett Graham of The Ledbury, the country-style celebrity chef Mike Robinson and the publican Edwin Vaux. These three have pooled their talents in an effort to recreate a little of the magic of Mike Robinson's Berkshire pub, the Pot Kiln. Berkshire game looms large on the menu, much of it shot by Robinson, and “For a cosy pub serving deliciously cooked rabbit, venison and pheasant, head for the heart of west London” Terry Durack The Independent on Sunday, 4 January 2009 (see online review) guest beers from the West Berkshire Brewery feature at the bar. If you didn't already get the idea that it's not your average gastropub, you would when you spotted Chez Bruce's Bruce Poole eating there because The Square's Philip Howard had raved to him about the food. Or when you realise the lovely ripply-pond crockery is by Sophie Conran, or that the napkins are of fine hessian. Or when the people at the next table insist that you order the Scotch egg from the bar menu, and when you do, it comes freshly cooked and still warm, with a deliciously jellied yolk inside a shell of venison and sausage (£2.50). Brett Graham, himself Britain's Young Chef of the Year in 2002, has put his money on 26-year-old chef Stephen Williams, who has worked at Michelin-star level at The Ledbury and at gastropub level at the Coach & Horses and Anchor & Hope. This is exactly the sort of dining experience we need right now: a top trained chef dealing directly with country supplies and doing something twisty with it. So there is a warm salad of mallard, smoked trout with leeks and wild sorrel, and a best-selling pheasant Kiev. Venison features as a daily special of T-bone and as a flaky sausage roll next to a deeply flavoured clarified game "tea" (£6.50) that is a total treat.”