Compton Swan - West Berkshire

A mate and I had a very pleasant cod and chips lunch with a couple of pints today. It was SO GOOD to find a pub with gluten free beers. My Speckled Hen was very welcome and my associate said that the bitters on tap were good also. Why on Earth do most pubs not stick a few bottles of GF beer in the bar? Service was great and we’ve no complaints. Thank you.

We found this pub/restaurant on the web and it seems to have had decent google reviews. We were a party of 7 and wanted somewhere to have an early evening meal after visiting a National Trust property. I thought it strange that on booking we were asked to pay a £10 deposit each, then, asked to pre order our food the day before?!?! This should have raised alarm bells however we still went with it. We found the place easy enough and had booked for 5pm we arrived on time and the staff were very helpful and friendly and clearly wanted us to enjoy our time there. The food came out very quickly and it soon became apparent that it was NOT freshly cooked but simply reheated from previous prep. I had the Lasagne with side salad and garlic bread. The garlic bread was about 4mm thick and resembled dry shoe leather and was like biting into a stale thick poppadom. The salad consisted of sliced raw onion, two slices of tomato and a small amount of baby leaf green leaves. The Lasagne was covered in a thick layer of almost indigestable cheese and the pasta and meat sauce was bland, dry (from reheating) and totally without flavour. Two others had fish and chips which was possibly pollock or basa but not cod and the batter was very hard and flavourless. The fish itself was far from fresh and had all the qualities of the cheapest econmy processed frozen fish from Iceland actually my wife would rather have eaten the latter. My brother in law had gammon, egg and chips and the gammon was like the sole of a shoe in texture, the egg was overcooked and the chips were OK. We paid nearly £100 for 5 adults and 2 children to eat. The images of food on their website do not in any way resemble what gets served up at your table. Presumably the web designer has used library images. The food can be best described as bland, tasteless stodge. I walked past the kitchen several times and looked through the window in the door and it is not what I would describe as a busy bustling food prep area I could not see any staff in there. This does NOT instill any confidence at all. Would we go there again NO Would we recommend this place NO We are not being over critical as having young children we do use Harvester and Beefeater from time to time and the food at these chain restaurants is basic but reasonable family value. The quality of the food at the Foinavon (or Compton Swan if you prefer to call it this) is dreadful. Unfortunately as we had to pay £70 in deposit we just picked at the food until we had had enough and paid the balance else we would have just walked out without paying and found a better local pub with decent food. Avoid at all costs £100 down the drain.

We had a delightful family dinner on a Wednesday evening with the kids. The staff was very understanding and patient with our children who were overly excited about Halloween. The decorations were fantastic and really added to the atmosphere. The food was delicious, classic pub fare. I would definitely recommend trying the rodeo burger.

What lovely people, broke down this morning from Bournemouth on the way to Coventry for a funeral, the staff/owner kindly arranged for a friendly mechanic to come out gave coffee on the house. So nice to meet kind people, we have just made the crematorium, thankyou all especially Bob the mechanic for saving the day, enjoy a few well earned beers on us later tonight Many many thanks Malanie Cameron

A absolutely gorgeous wee country bar, bar staff and owner are so welcoming. We spent 3 days in the village and 3 evenings hear we had the best time highly recommend we can't wait to go back