I had more fun in two nights in the Eagle and Child in this delightful Lake District village than I have had in the pubs of Richmond and environs in two years. Perhaps we were lucky, or perhaps this is where all the cool kids hang out.
You would not think of this pub as the den of iniquity it clearly is by looking at it from the outside, or in fact the inside. It is a pretty typical old country pub with low beams, dim lighting but surprisingly adequate toilets. It sits alongside a stream and would be a fantastic place to sit out if it ever stopped raining in the Lake District (it is apparently the wettest place in Britain, and I saw little to dispel that). The pub, very sensibly, has a large number of marquees to make up for its location.
As you can see, they stock all the beers, which, if you come from London, is a change to say the least. I must admit we did have a few pints of Poretti, which is some sort of made up swill a bit like Madri, simply because you got cashback when you bought a pint. Shallow, yes, but free is free. I am pleased to say that we were able to sample a few of the other beers between the 4 of us, and I, for one, was very taken by the West Coast IPA. Don’t have two, at least on the same night, as while it is refreshing and light (they are clearly aiming more at the West Coast of the USA than the West Coast of Windermere, which is anything but), it also almost hits 6% ABV.
We went two nights in a row, the first because it was Quiz night (and allegedly “Burger Night”), and the second because it was “Fish night”. Food on night one was really not very good.
Some of us tried the burger, which it was said came from the local butcher. He had clearly gone to Iceland, and bought burgers from their Value range, because they really were quite poor. And the fries had probably been bought on the same shop. The bacon chop was adequate, but the mange tout had been tortured to death it seemed, and even though the chips were marginally better, it was jumping a very low bar.
The evening was rescued by the quiz, however. The bar was absolutely packed, with every single resident of Staveley in attendance, plus a few ringers like ourselves. We love a pub quiz, having a reasonable spread of general knowledge as a family. Our sports brain wasn’t with us, but with an artist, a classicist and less usefully, two lawyers in attendance, we thought we were in with a reasonable chance. The quizzes in these parts are pretty dull, but this Northern incarnation was a revelation, with a lot of intermediate rounds for quick prizes, including a bingo round (first people to get a line of correct answers won), and a few others. Perhaps the reason we enjoyed ourselves so much is that we won one of these interstitial rounds, taking home a bottle of wine (soon to be repurposed as the base for a Coq au Vin) for correctly “guessing” the number of days Jim Callaghan was in power. Yes, I do have a degree in politics, and yes, I was alive at the time, but I was only 11 when he left power, and I can tell you most of the people in the pub were definitely adults at the time, and I reckon a few may even have been drawing their pensions already. Anyhow, delighted to have done some basic addition, and taking a prize home, and if we had this quiz at our local, we’d be there week in, week out.
We did not expect the same level of fun on Day 2, which was a Friday. So we were a little surprised at just how busy the pub was when we arrived. We live very close to Twickenham Stadium, so we know what “busy” looks like in a pub. While it wasn’t quite that bad, there was a 10-15 minute queue for drinks and food. The “why” became apparent quite soon. It certainly wasn’t because it was Fish Night (more on that soon), but instead centred around the fact that an ABBA Tribute band was playing in the garden.
Of course everyone loves ABBA. Some of us were far too cool in our younger days to think it was anything other than complete dross, but Muriel’s Wedding allowed us to like it semi-ironically, and then Mamma Mia has made it almost de rigeur to be an ABBA fan.
But first we had to make it through the piscine delights the chef had dreamed up for us. We were not hopeful, given how unutterably bland and awful the food was the night before. Fortunately, Thursday’s chef had been taken out the back and shot, and had been replaced with someone with half a clue. The chips were a different animal, and the Fish and Chips were up to the standard of The Crown here in St Margarets, which is high praise. The “Whitby Scampi” may well have been driven through Whitby on its way to the factory, but was a little “shop bought”. Given that the pub is in the same time zone and virtually the same latitude as Whitby, I had expected it would be freshly prepared, but it was homogenous and a bit watery, sadly.
Of course, this was just the starter, because the main course really was Voulez Vous, the quite excellent ABBA Tribute band. It was hard to see if anyone was actually playing an instrument at any point, and only one of the women seemed to be singing, with the other one phoning her performance in (from Glasgow?), but it had the right effect, and the whole garden was singing and dancing (something that in true English style increased in volume and decreased in coordination as the night went on).
There is not a lot of choice on the eating out front in Staveley. I’m going to do another review on the village generally, but frankly, the Eagle and Child is about as good as you are going to get in the evening, so make sure you pick your nights carefully, although from what we could see, every night is party night, so go for the drinks, the service and the craic, and maybe eat at home before you go…
Conclusion
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
- Food: 3.5/5
- Drinks: 4.5/5
- Service: 5/5
- Ambiance: 5/5
- Value for Money: 4/5
- Do I want to go back? I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
Eagle and Child: https://eaglechildinn.co.uk/
