Dinner / £££ / 8/10

I have been looking for an excuse to go to The Griffin since giving birth and another mum recommending it. It ticks all the boxes of a South Nottingham gastro pub. Beautiful building – tick, expensive refurb – tick, rural location in a wealthy village – tick and it doesn’t disappoint. As we were led to our table in the main dining room we were really impressed.

The Northerner was at home with the baby while I was with 2 school friends who have known me longer than we’d all care to admit and for the first time in 6 weeks I was free of an arm cast. I no longer needed to order something I could eat one handed so I didn’t even need to look at the menu. I was having a steak, wrist agony be damned. My friends ordered the fish and chips and the Pork Ribeye – which despite myself I couldn’t help but do a little ‘ooooh’ about. Sorry Emma. My steak was from Harkers which you can practically spit on from the restaurant but came on a plate that was way too big, this was a decent size steak but looked like postage stamp. Massive plates are one of my unreasonable hates – well I have reason, they rarely fit in dishwashers and make a decent portion look like it is for a Lilliputian. The chips were delicious, some of the best I have had. I loved the scored, meaty mushrooms and the heart shaped tomato saw me cooing again. The steak was good but not great, it had flavour and the fat was crisp (I like eating it, it is where the flavour is) so amped up the taste but it was a little overcooked. I asked for Medium Rare and I expect majority pink meat and a little blood but this was more Medium Well and tougher for it.

I don’t think you should hold this against a restaurant – long have I wished for a guide on a kitchens interpretation from ‘Blue’ to ‘Well done’ but that would mean photos on menus, the universal indicator for ‘shit food’. I am tempted to go into more detail when asked how I want my steak cooking but am not naive to think that lengthy descriptors make it to a chef, or that they should listen to them if they did.

My friends fish and chips were crispy with a small complaint that the chips were more like wedges and the fish still had the skin on. The Pork Ribeye was an impressively seasoned dish but the carb element felt a bit mean with the small hash browns (again suffering from being on a massive plate) lacking when compared to the chips of the other 2 dishes. We evened it out by sharing the chips and agreed it would be a lovely place to have a wedding.

I finished with a sticky toffee pudding and at this point I wish there was some cutlery on the photo for scale as it was a housebrick size serving. The ice cream melting into the hot toffee sauce; shiny with sugar, was as appetising as it looked. I wonder if any gastro pubs in South Nottingham DON’T have sticky toffee pudding on their menu? Hopefully not.

I mentioned to family that I had been to The Griffin and was met with the question of if it was better than it’s neighbours Perkins, The Radcliffe etc. It is the same price point and the local community must be delighted to have such a great place on their doorstep but it falls slightly short of some of it’s counterparts for my money.

FAMILY – I was child free when I visited (and there weren’t any children there) but the simple menu would accomodate little ones well and the room and unstuffy service means I would be happy to return with mine.