The Beeley Inn Review

Part of the Chatsworth Estate, The Beeley Inn in the Derbyshire village of Beeley, is a well regarded gastropub having held both two AA rosettes and a Michelin guide listing in the past (under its former name The Devonshire Arms at Beeley). Those awards may have long since been removed, but with the pub still holding a single AA rosette, I was hopeful of receiving some decent food as I rocked up for lunch with my wife and two children, on a gloriously sunny July Saturday.

There's a decent sized car park across the road from the pub for patrons, but even with an early afternoon lunch booking, we were lucky to grab the final spot when we arrived. Externally and internally this is a building with a lot of historic character and I liked the feel of the place. We were sat near the bar in the older part of the building which was a perfectly nice spot for a quality lunch; there's also a more modern brasserie area at the other end of the pub.

On offer at lunch is a three course carte menu, plus sandwiches, salads and some lighter snacks. There's also a three course children's menu too which is always appreciated. Drinks wise the selection wasn't huge, but all the standard bases were covered. I had a couple of Hedrick's and tonics whilst my wife and kids stuck with soft drinks.

Lunch began for me with the ham hock terrine, served with piccalilli and homemade focaccia. This was a fairly basic but inoffensive starter. The ham hock was nice, but the piccalilli didn't pack as much flavour as I'd hoped and the bread was quite dry. My wife and daughter both went for the heritage tomatoes, served with bocconcini, pesto and rocket; it was a tasty fresh starter which they both enjoyed.

For mains, I went for the Chatsworth Farm lamb, served with lamb fat pomme anna, charred hispi cabbage and a red wine sauce. This was a very rich dish (with copious amounts of butter on the potato, real heart-blockage material) but I really enjoyed it; it was a very tasty plate. My wife and daughter both had the cheeseburger, which included bacon, smoked cheese, a big pile of salad and fries.

The burger was quite nice in terms of flavour but the two patties on each burger had all (all four) been way overcooked, they were pretty much cremated which was a real shame. The patties were quite thin and just needed a lot less cooking time and lot more care. The accompanying fries were also very heavy on the salt. My son just had a side of hand cut chips which were OK.

Despite a slightly mixed experience for the savoury courses, there was of course no chance of us leaving without dessert. I went for the chocolate marquise, served with honeycomb and a salted caramel ice cream. This was actually nicer than I'd been expecting; the marquise wasn't too solid and carried a nice flavour, and the ice cream and honeycomb were both very tasty too.

My wife and daughter both went for the seasonal fruit crumble (pears and strawberries I think on the day of our visit) which they both enjoyed also. My young son just had some vanilla ice cream from the children's menu which was fine.

And so with that, a largely enjoyable lunch came to an end. Overall we enjoyed our visit here; the food was decent and probably a little bit better than I'd been expecting, and the service overall was pretty much without fault too. The gentleman who delivered most of our food in particular was very cheery so kudos to him, but all the staff were perfectly pleasant.

There wasn't any automatically included service charge and I wasn't given the option to add one via the card machine, but either way I would say the value was pretty fair in the current climate given the standard of cooking. I'd have absolutely no objection to eating here again in future, and I wish all involved all the best going forwards.