This article is taken from the March 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
Funny things happen on the way to Grantchester. The M11 is bordered with the corpses of deer, their maimed numbers far exceeding the annual British average of 106 cervine deaths per motorway.
The route to the fens can’t claim 2025’s most exotic roadkill, which has to be the unfortunate Mr Willoughby the wallaby, struck down in Leicestershire last September, but the sheer number of bloodied, antlered heads drooping mournfully over the central barrier is arrestingly sinister, like driving through an unspooling Uccello.
The AA reports a 34 per cent increase in fatal deer/vehicle collisions; so sentimentality aside, what’s happening to all this potentially free venison? It’s certainly not ending up in the kitchen of The Red Lion, a “thatched period gastropub”, in Grantchester.
The period is 1930s Surrey Tudorbethan, enhanced by a tableau of ye olde tat which greets the guest on entering the high, faux-beamed space. Hampers, storm lanterns, empty breadbins and supererogatory log baskets cluster around a chintz armchair with a blackboard on the cushion.
“Please don’t use me, I’m legless” is the motto, with a smiley face to show they’re just kidding. Got to love a date-rape gag with your white wine spritzer.
The Red Lion is a Greene King pub, and one can all too easily imagine the creative director of a boutique branding agency with headquarters on the outskirts of Ely explaining “cottagecore” to a bilious roomful of brewery execs who have been made to do unspeakable trust-building exercises with balloons on day three of an inspirational corporate retreat in a conference centre banqueting suite that smells of suppressed belches and despair. “It’s all about the frazzled Englishwoman aesthetic — it says so in House and Garden!”
Obviously, faced with such a heap of pointless rusticity one knows what the food is going to be like, but the Red Lion managed to fall short of even the lowest of expectations. Roasted beetroot with mozzafiore pearls and white balsamic puffs sounded like something Gwyneth Paltrow might be touting on Goop to ladies seeking to enhance their intimate experiences. (Mozzafiore is a chalky plant-based paste “inspired by the world of mozzarella pearls and cherries”, wherever that world may be.)
Other vegan options were sesame grilled sweetheart cabbage with a glaze of gochujang, the lively Korean condiment of fermented soybean, rice and chili, accompanied by coconut yoghurt and crispy onions; or a mushroom hoisin roll, both of which left me in the novel position of feeling sorry for vegans.
The range, sophistication and adventurousness of the contemporary British palate is definitely something to be celebrated, but successfully fusing disparate international traditions requires a degree of judicious restraint.
Greene King’s recruitment website lists the following criteria under the role of chef: “You’ll be cooking and assembling dishes that taste great, look insta-worthy and always turn up on time.” Nothing in this description proved true except for the assembly part, though whatever dark, dark kitchen is producing the Red Lion’s menu is frank and fearless when it comes to intra-culinary mash-ups.
The Middle East was represented with some burnt carrots in rose harissa and pistachio, Kerala popped in with a Malabar fish curry adorned with crispy samphire, Italy in a limp crab linguine, French-ish in lobster and crab croquettes with a phlegmy “bisque mayonnaise”, uniting in a chorus of smash fries with Korean barbecue seasoning, roasted shallot and cep pesto which definitely wasn’t teaching the world to sing.
Classic pub staples seemed a more promising option, and flat iron steak with watercress and garlic butter was quite competent. Less so the sausage sandwich with Branston pickle gravy, which one of our group requested without its Brie-style Baron Bigod cheese.
The cheese was apparently non-negotiable, which might have been the moment to get arsey with the waitress if we were to believe that the food was actually made on the premises.
Branston pickle gravy sounds like a really good thing, two variations on delicious brown sludge combined, though it might have helped the concept along if anyone had tasted it before serving. Turns out Branston pickle gravy is not a remotely fine idea.
Admittedly, “roadkill to table” lacks immediate appeal as a slogan, but it felt odd to eat this ersatz gloop when there were tons of fresh game rotting on the nearby hedgerows. Yes, health and safety, but also so many other unacknowledged factors which are combining to reduce hospitality, especially outside the capital, to a business of covert dawn deliveries and microwaves.
Underpaid, undertrained and uninspired staff, prohibitively expensive ingredients, the impossibility of scraping a living from food that isn’t produced at industrial scale are not challenges that can be disguised with a few quirky kitchen implements and a slick of Farrow and Ball. It’s not the pub’s fault that the gap in what punters have come to expect and what they’re prepared to pay for it leaves space for little more than clumsy sleight of hand on the plate.
It might be a disaster as a gastropub, but it was a salutary reminder of how easy it is to be complacent about a sector which is experiencing truly serious struggles. In the end, I was glad I went, and even gladder to leave before sunset under those filmy, wasted Bambi eyes.
