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Hatters Bar and Restaurant, The Pheasant, Ballinger Common, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire HP16 9LF

Hatters Bar and Restaurant, The Pheasant, Ballinger Common, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire HP16 9LF

The Pheasant, Ballinger Common, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire HP16 9LF

01494837236

Jane King used to be a milliner. She was a very successful milliner, her hats ended up in the big West End stores and she had reached the top, millinerally speaking. So she looked for fresh challenges and new worlds to conquer. She decided to open a restaurant and, I'm pleased to report, she's gone and done it again! Perhaps she could try a political career next and sort the country out. But not just yet - I hope the Hatters Bar is around for a quite some time.

She took over a village pub called the Pheasant and kept the name, but named the restaurant Hatters, after her milliner past. You can tell that a real designer is behind this - the rooms are bright and colourful with big windows and red walls which are covered with pictures of past hats. They are very nice rooms to be in. There is a bar area with leather sofas and chairs and a table or two and then the main restaurant which is in a sort of conservatory. Tables and chairs are wooden and well spaced with proper cloths and napkins and each features a very stylish centrepiece - often a huge glass with a candle in. Altogether very 'designer' but not overpoweringly so.

I started with a crab claw and salmon salad (£8) which was excellent. It worked beautifully and was a fair size as well, which was re-assuring. In a lot of places it wouldn't have been. For my main I had duck breast with orange duck confit and duchess potatoes (£16) with a side salad. A beautiful medley of flavours getting on very well together. The duck was perfectly cooked and presented and again there was plenty of it, not just a couple of scrapes of nothing with a sprinkle of 'jus' over them.

I finished off with cheese. Again plentiful and good with lots of biscuits and grapes. They also managed to bring my coffee at the same time as the cheese, which is how I like it and which is a feat of logistics that a lot of places just can't seem to manage. Even better, with the coffee you get a wine glass full of what I think were mini-Maltesers, or something very like them. What a nice touch. I had far too many. Service was excellent and so was the house wine.

So who to bring? Anyone - a lover, a maiden aunt, the family, businesspeople. Bring the world. They will thank you. I really enjoyed the whole experience - you could tell that the place was run by somebody who cared and had actually thought it all through. There is a patio outside with a village green opposite and, I think, a cricket pitch and a little pavilion. So, if I'm right, on a summer afternoon after a good lunch, you'll be able to linger over your coffee to the distant thwack of leather on willow. That's about as good as it gets, really, isn't it?


www.thepheasantballingercommon.com
By Harry at 20/04/2007 - 00:34 | 2007 | Ambience | Approved | England | Modern British | Review | ££££/$$$$ | add new comment | 535 reads