Crown Inn, Shorwell
"Surely there can't be anywhere left that you haven't eaten?" is a question regularly asked of Matt and Cat. And, the geographically-minded of readers may have noticed that, within a five mile radius of Ryde, the choices are becoming fewer as more eateries are crossed off the list. Hence the recent excursions to Bembridge, Nettlestone and Sandown.
One dark evening, in the search for somewhere new, Matt and Cat pointed the Catmobile in a westerly direction and decided not to stop until a new place emerged in the glare of the headlamps. That place turned out to be the Crown Inn, Shorwell; the journey saw Matt and Cat waving as they passed already visited establishments in Ryde, Binstead, Wootton Bridge and Newport. What a lot of eating out!
Drawing the iron horse to a whinnying halt in the capacious pub car park, M and C entered the cosy pub. With its low ceilings and intimate lighting and nooks, The Crown, Shorwell retains an olde worlde pub feel. However, this doesn't mean that the pub is stuck in the dark ages; a lovely garden with weeping willows offers a stream-side al fresco dining experience to the gentle quacking of the resident ducks.
Review continues:
On a drizzly evening like the one when Matt and Cat visited, unless you are a determined smoker, you might be more comfortable inside the pub. On entering, they patrolled the entire venue and, because the place is arranged around a central bar, ended back where they started from and chose a table by the door.
In a cunning marketing move, the first thing that you see when you enter the pub is the specials board and M and C made their choices from the tempting array. However, in the interests of good manners and their readers, M and C took some time to see what was on offer in the regular menu before ordering chicken supreme with rosemary, lemon and white wine sauce, and pork steak with apple and cider sauce. Other delights included duck breast, plenty of seafood dishes, pub favourites, such as burgers, steaks and pasta; the day's vegetarian special was three bean and vegetable chilli with rice.
At first glance, the pork and chicken dinners looked pretty similar, with their creamy sauces, pale meats and tomato and parsley garnish. Their tastes were quite different though. The pork was delightfully lean and the sauce was sublime; the apple was neither too sweet nor too bitter and the cider gave it a great tang. Both meals were accompanied by chunky chips and one plate of seasonal vegetables to share.
The well-presented chicken supreme turned out to be both breasts of a roasted chicken, the skin of which had been seasoned to make it nice and crunchy, not flabby as chicken skin can sometimes be. The rosemary sauce was an interesting variation on chicken supreme's usual coriander, and was soon mopped up by the thick-cut chips.
As usual, Matt and Cat were unable to squeeze in a pudding, although the strawberry pavlova looked very tempting. Where do they get strawberries from this time of year? And where was the duck sourced from? On their exit from the pub, Matt and Cat noticed that the stream seemed strangely quackless...
22 comments
Nice Pub, Lovely Garden and the young lad behind the bar was very good and made us feel welcome, not so impressed by the woman serving the meals though, very scruffy and 'loud'.
The food was OK but nothing special, nice home made lamb burgers but spoilt by a cheap burger bun and re-fryed chips.
Overall a pleasant lunch but 'Pub of the Year'? wouldn't be my choice.
Apparently the Crown is under new management since I last visited, and it shows. We turned up at 6pm, wanting to get our food order in smartly because we had our young son with us. The pub was dark. At a few minutes past 6 a van pulled up, and a middle-aged couple emerged to open up.
It was a chilly night so we took seats by the cosy fireplace, except it wasn't cosy because there was no fire, and no-one came to light it. We bought drinks and I could hear a flurry of activity at the bar, as it dawned on them that there was no-one in the kitchen. Much confusion as they frantically tried to locate their staff. People arrived who had booked tables, but were told that food orders would “probably” be taken at 6.30. This was not what we'd expected from the Crown, and the chances of having a hearty meal and still being home in time for our son's bedtime looked slim.
At 6.15, two young men flew in through the door, leaving it open behind them, so letting in wintry blasts, and dashed to the kitchen. We explained to our son what "amateurism" meant, and decided to hoof it to the Wight Mouse in Chale. And I'm very glad we did: warm and cosy, friendly service, very good nosh, and we still got home for my son's bedtime.
The chicken supreme was two bits of tough chicken with RAGU poured on and the battered cod was not freshly battered just something nasty preprepared out of the fridge which was then over fried to a tough gritty dark brown.
I made my views clear to a bar attendant. However I was able to complement him on the excellent special beer.
We live on the Island.
The Lamb Hot Pot was very tasty and the vegetables fresh and not over-cooked.
My infinitely better half had a PROPER steak and ale pie, not a steak casserole in a pot with puff pastry dumped on top. How many pubs nowadays do proper pies?
One negative comment, please do away with the 2 seater table next to the Gents toilets. Besides it being an unfortunate place to be seated it is also a nightmare to negotiate when you are busting for one!!
We had parsnip and honey soup (good) followed by roast beef which was very good. Giant quantities, no wonder there is an obesity problem, so no room for pudding. We only ordered the soup because there was a notice on the bar stating there was a 45 minute delay for main courses, but fortunately we were were in no hurry.
Vegetables were fair, but I don't see how it won the Country Pub award. Maybe they have lots of friends voting for them.Also I didn't like the fact that you order drinks in one place and food in another - I can't be faffing about.
The bar now has a new female manager that is warm and welcoming, the kitchen has a fantastic young enthusiastic team that work smoothly and efficiently.
I have to agree with you on one thing tho. The crown inn is a wonderful place!
However, mike and sallys hard work has definitly not be thrown away, but has been built upon and the new owners hard work is paying off.
Its funny because you dont work their so your know just making judgments about things you hear.
Some people arn't cut out to work at a pub ( i guess thats why you dont work there anymore).
The Crown was busy (Sunday evening), with plenty of booked tables. I do hope the teething problems for the new management are over and it continues to improve.
consider the crown to be one of the best pubs on the island.
We popped in today and the food was as excellent as ever; had the portebella steak after
much deliberation!(lots of specials to chose from!) she had the mushroom stroganoff
the young barman was very welcoming and friendly and it was nice to cosy up next to
the crackling fire!
We were told about an upcoming dickens 'christmas carol' night in decmber complete with
turkey and pudding so have already booked ourselves in!
Highly Recommended to anyone!
The food was great and the service was even better, Staff were very friendly and we had many a giggle so thank you to pauline and gareth! will be back
Myself and my husband went for a meal at the Crown on Sunday evening and it was extremely good!!
After reading some of the reviews we were a tad apprehensive? but the meals were perfect, my husband always has steak and the sirloin he said was cooked to perfection!
All in all we had a perfect evening of good food, good company and excellent customer service the barman was first class!!!
Would recommend to all.
Choice of beers pretty good. Nice atmosphere but a bit noisy.
We ordered 2 chicken curries, scampi and pasta dish. the pasta and scampi were OK but the curries !!
8 chunks of chicken on a bed of rice covered in a chili tomato sauce - definately NOT curry.
when we went to pay i mentioned that the 'curry' was disappointing and was asked "what not enough chicken"
I think I might try again in another 10 years.
PS the meals were also on the expensive side
The Crown has been one of our favourite places to eat on the Island for years and when we
lived on the Island for a while, we went there regularly. However, on a trip there last
summer, we were VERY disappointed with the food. As it was quite a cold day (don't you
just love our English weather!) we ordered some good old pub food - sausage and mash
with homemade onion gravy. I can honestly say it was the worst food I have ever
had. The sausage and mash were barely warm and the sausage was undercooked but the most
unappetising part of it was the gravy. Instead of homemade onion gravy as promised - a
pot of the cheapest catering-type oxtail soup seemed to have been poured over it! It
really was awful. We should have complained, but didn't. Instead we both spent the rest
of the day feeling very ill.
We're coming over to the Island again soon and really hope that the chef problems at The
Crown have been sorted out now as it used to be a lovely place to eat and spend an hour
or so sitting in the pub garden.
For all the prettiness of the location, going to The Crown spoilt what would otherwise have been a lovely day.
We must be forgiving souls as we went again a few days ago and sat out in the lovely garden. One of us had the home made burger and the other had the tagliatelle. Wow! We were both impressed with the quality of the freshly made food that was served by a friendly waitress. Portions were generous and I have never before tasted such a lovely balsamic dressing as I did on my side salad, that came with the burger. The husband normally wont go near a mushroom, so I was expecting to see a little pile of them left on his plate. But no, he actually enjoyed them.
The Crown is back on my pub list!
The Crown is a beautiful pub with a good head chef, who is completely over-worked and undervalued, when the owners unfairly sacked the second chef said head chef actually had to work seven days a week, all day. No wonder the food and time taken to serve it often suffers, as demonstrated by the majority of the comments on here. As for the owners, the landlady in particular, is a nasty piece of work, who completely disrespects and intimidates her staff and has no idea of how to correctly treat people. I only put up with it for so long as attempts to find an alternative job were slow in the midst of a recession. I frequently saw her being rude and arrogant to customers, I could write a list of times that she was so rude to customers that they walked out! I witnessed her cause one couple to leave after accusing their children of being 'incapable of manners and dirty' when they accidently spilt some food on the floor. I was gobsmacked and very embarrassed that I worked for her.
Basically I could go on and on but I won't! All I can say is, as a previous person has posted, it is a huge shame that the Crown Inn has fallen into the hands of a couple who dont deserve it. I worked with some fantastic, hard-working people while I was there, the vast majority of staff are excellent and without them the place would fall apart, a shame the owners dont appreciate them.
Also, a final point, if you do go to the Crown and if you feel obliged to tip, I would make a point of asking that the tips actually get into the hands of the staff that they are intended for...
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