The Hartley Arms named best pub in Berkshire by the National Pub and Bar Awards

A Donnington pub has been named the best in Berkshire by an organisation that recognises outstanding drinking establishments and eateries across the country.

The Hartley Arms gained the accolade in this year’s National Pub and Bar Awards because of its outstanding service, incredible food and cosy interior.

The gastro-pub, which is part of the Honesty Group, opened in September 2020 and managed to survive the trials and tribulations caused by multiple lockdowns to be named one of the best 94 pubs in the UK.

General manager Ben Chandler said: “We are really overjoyed with winning this award.

"Having opened during the toughest time in catering history, we have built a fantastic business that’s thriving and which has become the success it is today.”

Originally The Three Horseshoes, the Donnington pub changed hands several times over the last few years amid the current difficulties for pubs to survive.

After being closed for nearly half a decade, Honesty inquired about opening a pub on the premises, following the group’s success with its first pub located in Inkpen, the Crown & Garter.

Honesty refurbished the building, built a café at the back nd opened with the same ethos shared throughout the company; a focus on good, locally sourced and ethical food.

Restaurant supervisor James Hepworth said: “Winning this award for us as a pub is fantastic because it shows that the hard work we’re doing is being recognised which is great.

"It is also an opportunity for us to kick on.

“We’ll keep experimenting, we’ll keep adapting and upgrading what we’re doing.”

The Hartley Arms has a regularly changing season menu that provides classic English cuisine in a French style made from good, simple ingredients.

The menu is different from the one at the Crown & Garter, which last year was also named the best pub in Berkshire by the National Pub and Bar Awards, with the Donnington pub having free reign and independence to decide what food it serves.

Mr Hepworth said: “It’s easy to get someone through the door once.

"To get someone back it means you’ve got to do everything right.

"We’re lucky enough that people do come back and I think that’s a testament to the quality that we’re trying to provide.”

All the ingredients used at The Hartley Arms are locally sourced, with the restaurant often able to trace them back to the very field they were grown or reared in.

The pub also stocks alcoholic drinks from local breweries and distilleries, such as West Berkshire Brewery, Berkshire Botanicals and Blowing Stone Gin.

All of the pub’s food waste is recycled into biofuel via a Newbury-based waste management company Environmental Solutions.

Having been named the best pub in Berkshire, The Hartley Arms is now hoping to go on to win the South East regional award at the National Pub & Bar Awards grand finals in London on Wednesday, June 22.

Mr Hepworth said: “We are aware that we are small, we are new.

"But I think the fact that we have only been open a relatively short amount of time, with half of that time having to be closed and the other half being with social distancing measures; that we’ve managed to do this in this amount of time with that going against us, if we go no further, we’re really pleased that we have gotten this far.”