The Barrel Inn Review

Believed to date back to 1537, The Barrell Inn, nestled in Bretton in the heart of the Peak District, is an historic pub with a solid reputation for serving good food. It's not a place I'd visited before, nor a place that's featured in any of the major food guides, at least not for many years. But, with the arrival of new head chef Carl Riley in summer 2022 (a chef whose food I've very much enjoyed previously), I decided it was time for a visit and duly rocked up for lunch with my wife and two young children, on a gloriously sunny August Saturday.

It's hard to miss the stunning views on arrival, which certainly draw in the visitors. On the practical side, there's plenty of parking too which was good to see. The welcome on arrival was warm and we were shown to our table in the busy dining area. It felt fully booked and a few people without reservations were turned away, although there are other areas of the pub where you can just pop in for a drink. Decor wise, it's a fairly traditional pub but quite nicely finished, the toilets were pretty modern too.

On offer at lunch is a pretty extensive carte menu which includes some "light lunch" options. There's no children's menu which is a shame, but they were able to offer half portions of some dishes at least. Drinks wise, it's a pub, so there's a fairly extensive selection as you'd expect. I enjoyed my usual Hendricks and tonics during the meal, whilst my wife and the kids were perfectly happy with their apple juices.

Lunch began for me with the local wood pigeon, coated with an aromatic mix and served with a celeriac remoulade, Guinness foam and reindeer moss (bringing back memories of another time I had reindeer moss not too far away). Wood pigeon is not easy to deliver well, but the flavours were good and overall I enjoyed this course. There was however a fairly big issue with the wood pigeon skin, which was really tough, I physically couldn't cut it with my starter knife. Fortunately I'd been given a steak knife for my main which just about did the job. Despite that the meat wasn't overly dry and tasted good, but it's a shame it just wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

My wife had the goats cheese and beetroot salad which she enjoyed, my daughter had a half sized portion of fish and chips and my young son just a side of chips, which were both suitably tasty. They were happy to deliver both the kids meals with our starters which was good to see also.

For mains, I had the Derbyshire lamb served with a miniature Sheppard's pie, baby beets, charred gem lettuce and anchovy buttered new potatoes. Overall, it was a delicious plate and I really enjoyed it. The cooking of the meat was faultless and although there was a lot happening on the dish, it ate well as a whole. My wife had the wood pigeon, which was essentially a larger version of my starter accompanied this time by some red cabbage and game chips. She had two pieces of wood pigeon and unfortunately the skin on one was again pretty tough, but she enjoyed the flavours overall.

There was little chance of us leaving without dessert of course, but by now the pub was pretty busy and there was a fairly long wait for these to arrive after we ordered. My freshly made Bakewell pudding was delicious though, whilst my wife very much enjoyed a pretty faultless vanilla panna cotta. My daughter wasn't quite as thrilled with her chocolate brownie, but my young son polished off his scoop of strawberry ice cream with a joyous glee.

And so, a very enjoyable lunch in a stunning location came to an end. Overall, although there were some issues with the food, there was a high level of cooking skill on display and my three courses were well above the level of standard pub grub. Service too was good, maybe not quite as attentive as it might have been but generally we were well looked after so I've no complaints on that front either. It's not the cheapest venue around, but I'd happily go back at any time if I was looking for a high quality, family friendly pub lunch.