THE FOOD REVIEW: The 1772 Brasserie, The Retreat at Elcot Park

The 1772 Brasserie is one of two restaurants within The Retreat at Elcot Park, a pleasant countryside hotel located between Newbury and Hungerford.

The other is Yu, a pan-Asian restaurant that offers an exciting hybrid of traditional Asian food and typical fine dining dishes (read our review of Yu here).

The 1772 – named for the year the hotel (house, as it was) was built by local industrialist Anthony Bushby-Bacon – is The Retreat’s larger and signature restaurant.

To get to the restaurant you have to walk through the hotel’s plush and trendy interiors, including an impressive lounge that has walls adorned with impressionist paintings and eye-catching graphic posters.

The 1772 itself is contained within a sizable room that has a long, traditional bar dominating one of its sides.

It’s a lovely space, either filled with light from its large windows in the day to accompany a pleasant afternoon tea, or lit low when it’s dark to create a cosy evening meal ambience.

I visited the 1772 on one such evening, and was welcomed to a window seat along with my companion by one of the friendly waiters. I must say, all the waiting staff were superb. Smartly dressed, approachable and helpful, they helped the evening go by like a breeze.

We also visited on a Monday to take advantage of the restaurant’s current half price promotion.

Running on Mondays at both lunch and dinner, diners will get 50 per cent off the cost of their food when ordering from the a la carte menu.

And getting the food we did for half price felt like an absolute steal.

To kick off the meal I decided to try one of the 1772’s signature cocktails –The Signet Mule (£13, named after The Signet Collection of boutique hotels that The Retreat is part of), which contains The King’s Ginger Liqueur, Cascabel Honey Tequila, lime juice, ginger beer and bitters

This cocktail was like a sweet shop in a glass. The honey flavours were truly sweet, and they paired well with the fiery ginger. Certainly one for those who like their drinks a bit out there.

To start we had grilled scallops with cauliflower cream, pancetta and a black pudding crumb (£15) and heritage beef tartare with Melba toast and anchovy mayonnaise (£14).

The scallops, in a word, were marvellous. Soft and not rubbery at all, they were perfectly cooked. It was an imaginative starter that came along with these salty pancetta crisps and the pleasant cauliflower sauce.

The beef tartare was also a success and just what you expect from the French dish. It had that iconic tasty, salty flavour and the mayonnaise was a great topping to go with it.

For our main course we chose the Hampshire 32-day dry aged ribeye which was served with potatoes (£32) and a side of honey glazed Chantenay carrots (£5) and the pepper-crusted Hampshire venison loin with mash, soused blackberries and buttered cabbage (£34).

The steak was cooked to perfection with a tasty browned crust, and as my dinner companion said: “A sauce would have spoiled it.”

The potatoes and carrots were also amazing.

Despite all this praise for the rest of the meal, the venison might still be the pick of the bunch.

Cooked just the right amount with a rare centre and a browned exterior, the slices of meat were arranged on a fluffy, buttery bed of mash and surrounded by the complex and sweet blackberry sauce.

It was a gorgeous plate of food.

The sweetness of the fruit was a unique yet compelling counterpart to the richness of the venison.

Both mains, as well as the starters, were served as very generous portions.

With fine dining restaurants you often feel like you’re paying for quality but get let down on quantity.

At the 1772 Brasserie, you’re getting both in spades.

I finished the meal with a slice of crème brûlée cheesecake that came with a blob of cassis sorbet (£9).

The cheesecake was as smooth and as soft as anything, with the crème brûlée topping a delightful twist. A sweet crescendo to a delightful meal.

The 1772 certainly isn’t cheap, but it is not a restaurant you visit because it’s cheap.

Its intriguing menu created by head chef Pete Mason has a wide selection of exciting, high-quality dishes.

You really get what you pay for when it comes to the service, the atmosphere and of course, the food.

It might be a 15-minute drive out of town to get to The Retreat at Elcot Park, but its undoubtedly worth the short trip to eat at one of its two stellar restaurants.