Review: The Greene Oak, Windsor

Coming back from a long enough trip abroad (this time, a six week jaunt around northern Spain) gives you the chance to look at what’s back home with a somewhat fresh gaze. At least, if you try hard enough. The English pub really is perhaps the most distinctive piece of our human landscape, very different from a Spanish cafe-bar, a German beer hall or a French brasserie. Obviously pubs come in all shapes and sizes, but if I ask you to close your eyes and picture a country pub, you’ll be picturing something like The Greene Oak: old wooden tables and chairs, a floor of timber or flagstone, probably timber on the walls or above in the form of beams or panelling, windows that look at least a hundred years old, plenty of glass and brass behind the bar or around the room. And I think this particular ambience comes into its own when the nights close in and the leaves turn red and gold on the trees, when you want to get in out of the weather and meet up with family or friends.

The Greene Oak sits at the end of the road headed west out of Windsor, and looks just like any other food-focused pub in the home counties. The menu is broadly traditional, with a few more ambitious ingredients and combinations than usual. I started with a grilled goat cheese salad, a full-flavoured goat with crisp chicory leaves, apple matchsticks and watercress. Easy to like. Maureen’s mackerel fillet was an excellent piece of fish, skin grilled good and crispy, with a few oyster leaves and a “squid bolognaise” which sounded pretty splendid on the menu and was on the plate a nice thick tomatoey sauce/ragu. Worked well with the mackerel but didn’t shout squid to me.

Maureen went with the battered hake and triple-cooked chips. They were both perfectly good specimens: the batter on the fish wasn’t oily, the fish inside was great, the chips were crispy and moreish. Their tartare sauce needs calling out as particularly fine, creamy but punchy. My haunch of venison was a dense, full-flavoured piece of meat. Nice char on the surface. Lush bacon and onion gravy. The two savoy cabbage leaves, flat and chewy underneath the haunch, were a strange accompaniment. Maybe they were meant as set dressing? Bambi’s forest glade? The starch alongside was macaroni cheese with shredded nuggets of slow-cooked venison shank through it. I declare it to be a Very Good Thing.

Somehow I had enough room for a pudding, and went for Sticky Toffee Pudding. Haven’t had a STP in years. This wasn’t bad, but the pudding didn’t have enough date-induced stickiness unto itself (if the pudding is dry without the toffee sauce then it’s not a great pudding) and the butterscotch sauce was tasty but without the necessary blackened toffee bitterness to cut the sweet.

You’ll be down £50 each for three courses without drinks, so this isn’t a cheap pub dinner. Quality was good, but there’s a bit of damning-with-faint-praise there. I’m not going to remember this meal in a week, and if I’m looking for a pub dinner around the Windsor area again then I’ll probably be inspired to try somewhere else.