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Kibworth & District Chronicle
The Joiner's
Arms is well signed and just off the main drag through
the village. Although some of the good burghers dropped
in for a drink while we were there it is more a restaurant
than a pub.
The décor is pleasant, with beams, brass
and candles and none of the old sewing machines, tractor
seats and similar trappings that other pubs favour.
Half of the fifty available seats were occupied on the
Tuesday night in November that we chose to invest out
bridge kitty in a dinner.
The fare is much more sophisticated
than your average pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap pub. Chef
Stephen Fitzpatrick is the very clever man on the stoves.
He came from Leicester originally, spent much of his
career in restaurants in the Cotswolds and returned
to his roots in April. He toured the tables to find
out how his work was going down and the answer was 'very
well'.
His first offering was some excellent hot ciabatta.
There were six tempting starters on the regular menu,
including ham hock and Y Fenni cheese terring and roasted
flat mushrooms and Chorizo on brioche, and six more
on the board. Three of us enjoyed delicious sautéed
duck livers with smoked bacon and black pudding basted
with the pan juice and with a row of four succulent
scallops on a bed of perfect pea and asparagus risotto.
The wine list comprised twenty-eight items from £10-£18
(champagne was dearer). We drank £10 South African Sauvignon,
which did the job. Again, there were six main courses
on the menu and six more on the board, ranging from
£10 to £13. I chose a rich hearty venison pie with mash
like Iris Champ and roasted parsnips. Hilary's generous
portion of pot-roasted pheasant came with onions, bacon
and a tasty mushroom and red wine sauce. The other neighbours
said their Turbot was superb and there was a wild mushroom
gateau with truffle oil and roast peppers for vegetarians.
To conclude, we shared a magnificent raspberry soufflé
with ice cream and a delicately flavoured panna cotta.
The bill for four was £100.
Folks, this place really
is the business and is open for lunch and dinner from
Tuesday to Saturday and for lunch on Sunday.
The Leicester Mercury - June 2005
The term gastro pub is one I dislike as a description on an in which provides restaurant standard food, but I can tell you that the Joiners Arms us a venue that any gastronome would be happy to frequent.
Chef patron Stephen Fitzpatrick and his team provide dinners with in informal setting, a warm welcome, and food which is well above average pub fare, with service which is efficient and friendly.
The choice is not huge, because every dish is freshly cooked, but it offers variety, whether you select from the carte or the blackboard with dishes of the day.
Among other intriguing-sounding starters were a mushroom and garlic feuillette (flaky pasty to you and me), ham hock terrine with pineapple relish and a poached egg, king scallops on a garlic mash with black pudding, a crab spring roll with chilli jam, and crispy pork with wontons.
More run-of-the-mill items were a crown of melon with sorbet, soup of the day at £3.90, a tomato and mozzarella salad, cured salmon and a goat's cheese and red onion tar, pub king prawns which were one of the more expensive dishes at £6.80 - but they were regally sized and in a delicious creamy sauce.
Here, I have to metion the presentation, which is a
Joiners Arms speciality - the tomatio and mozzarella
salad was not spread around a plate, but piled up the
centre and garnished with salad leaves, while my goat's
cheese and red onion tart was a light filo pastry confection,
which just managed to confine the melting cheese on
a tangy onion base. From the wine list - again not huge,
but with a reasonable selection of New World and European
wines, none of them budget-busting - we chose a French
Syrah at £12.25, and sparkling water which come in such
attractive blue bottles that you done mind paying £2.90
for it (they let you keep the bottle if you ask). Warmed
ciabatta bread and real butter (no wrapped portions
here) come as standard. The food is so good that I'd
have liked more time to savour the starter before embarking
on the mains course, which arrived very promptly. Here,
dishes included cod with mussels; sea bass with pak
choi and a crab ravioli; barramundi (an Australian fish,
apparently), roasted lamb with Mediterranean vegetables.
Was the scallops started available as a main course,
we asked. No problem. Small portion or large? (No prizes
for guessing!) I chose a steak, another member of the
quartet has cod, and the fourth opted extravagantly,
for the Dover sole - a rarely found treat, and the most
expensive items on the menu at £20.50. My steak was
almost the size of a small joint. I didn't let anyone
else in on the crispy onion rings or the tasty field
mushroom but I shared the plentiful chips, for which
the cod eater was especially grateful, her portion being
adequate, rather than huge. The sauce au poivre was
light, tasty and fragrantly peppery. The scallops were
plentiful and delicious, the cod tasty, but outclassed
by the sole, which was superb. Yes I know, at that price,
so it should be - but it was exceptional.
You will - quite rightly- be thinking that after all
that nobody needed a pud. Faced with such goodies as
iced tiramisu parfait, pineapple and passionfruit Pavlova,
and lemon grass and coconue pannacotta, though, who
could resist. We gave in gracefully, sharing around
the parfait (an improvement on any tiramisu I've tried),
a lemon tart (strong on citrus, which the thinnest of
crisp pasty as a base) and the pavlova in which the
melting marshmallow of the meringue was offset by the
sharpness of the fruit.
At about £33 a head, which included
two bottles of wine and two of water; it wasn't a cheap
meal, but we deemed it worth every penny and that given
the choice, we would save up one meal at the Joiners
rather than settle for two at half the price.
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