The Coach Review

Opened in late 2014 by celebrity chef Tom Kerridge, The Coach in Marlow is a renowned gastropub in the town of Marlow, and has held both three AA rosettes and a Michelin star for several years. Having enjoyed an excellent meal a few years ago at Mr Kerridge's other Marlow stalwart The Hand and Flowers, I was optimistic of seeing some good cooking on show (despite fairly frequent scathing online reviews from regular punters) as I rocked up for lunch with my wife and two children, on a hot May Thursday.

Booking online was via ResDiary which was no issue; I believe in the past the restaurant didn't take advance bookings (or only took bookings on the actual day from memory) but that policy has long since been abandoned fortunately. There's no dedicated parking for the restaurant, but Marlow Central Car Park is a sub-five-minute walk away and we found a space no problem on the day of our visit.

The welcome on arrival was perfectly warm and friendly, and we were directed (rather than shown) to our table which was a booth at the far end of the restaurant, near the open kitchen. The restaurant is fairly cramped I would say, it was a bit of a squeeze to get in, and that mainly stems from there not being much space at all between the bar stool seating and the seating around the outer edge of the restaurant.

The table was fairly small for four people but it was manageable, and we were sat by an open window which was handy as it was a hot day. A couple of different staff members did offer us a fan during our meal which was appreciated (although we were OK without). I wasn't a huge lover of the internal decor but it was pretty inoffensive, albeit the screens showing sports (some random golf tournament during our visit) won't be to everyone's taste. The restaurant was busy when we arrived which was great to see, but a lot quieter by the time we left.

On offer at lunch is the main carte menu made up of what our waitress described as sharing dishes (I wouldn't describe them as that, but more on that later) with smaller and larger plates, and that's what we ate from. There is also a shorter set lunch menu but there's no children's menu or the option of smaller portions for kids. Drinks wise, there's a decent wine list and a sizeable selection of cocktails, beers and so on, but we just stuck with soft drinks (lemonade and apple juice) during our meal.

Lunch began for me with the black pudding scotch egg, topped with lardo and served with a green peppercorn sauce. I enjoyed this a lot; the dish carried a nice level of heat throughout and it was a thoroughly tasty start to the meal. My wife too enjoyed her duck liver parfait, which was a lovely velvety smooth texture as well as being delicious, accompanied by onion chutney and a slice of toasted brioche. The kids weren't as thrilled with a portion each of garlic and rosemary milk bread; it was OK but a little over-dry on the inside and it's fair to say we've had better bread in the past at restaurants of a similar level.

Next up for me was the chicken kiev, served with green asparagus and a wild garlic emulsion. The emulsion was nice, but the chicken kiev itself was really disappointing. Eating the chicken was like biting into a rubber bouncy ball (like it has been cooked too quickly at a high heat) and the garlic butter inside carried very little flavour too. I ate it (I was hungry) but it was a poor dish all round.

My wife went for the signature 'Coach Burger' which was a lot tastier; it was fairly small for a burger but I managed to steal a bit and enjoyed both the meat and the Asian slaw elements. My daughter had the deep fried cod which was tasty too with a really delicate batter, whilst my son was happy with a portion of chips. The chips were more like potato wedges to be honest, but they were well made and very tasty.

Although the savoury courses had been a bit of a mixed bag, of course, there was no chance of us leaving without giving the desserts a try. Both my wife and I went for the English strawberry tart, served with vanilla cream and strawberry sorbet. I enjoyed this, it wasn't perhaps as stand out as I'd been hoping (I would have liked a higher strawberry to cream ratio), but it was a perfectly tasty dish for a hot day.

My daughter tried the white chocolate chip cookie and marshmallow pot, served with a raspberry sorbet. She was expecting a pot made out of marshmallow (an ambitious ask), it was more like a chocolate and fruit crumble, but it was tasty enough. For my son, our waitress did offer a not-on-the-menu scoop of vanilla ice cream rather than a full dessert which was much appreciated, and the ice cream was good too.

And so, after collecting our bill with no fuss, an enjoyable lunch came to an end. Overall we did enjoy our visit here, the food on the whole was decent (albeit not quite as good as I'd been hoping) but there were some lapses for sure, and my chicken main in particular wasn't right. I do have a general issue with the restaurant describing this as a sharing/tapas menu; I've been to lots of restaurants serving sharing plates, and this isn't one of them by any stretch, a lot of the dishes would be really difficult practically to share.

I can understand why they take that approach as it gives them licence to serve dishes as and when they're ready (and that's very much what happened during our visit), but I do feel like any professional kitchen at this level should be able to serve starters, mains or desserts for a four-top at the same time.

The service though was very good; all the staff were very friendly and we were well looked after. There's no automatically included service charge, and indeed the restaurant website states 'We pride ourselves in delivering the highest standards of service in a building that we care for very much. All costs of delivering this are included in your bill', so it was a little bit of a surprise to see a gratuity question pop up on the card machine when paying, but of course I left a tip (as always).

To still be going strong more than ten years after opening is no mean feat, and a busy Thursday lunch service is testament to the fact they're doing something right here, particularly during such challenging times for hospitality. This is by any standard a very good restaurant and although I personally wouldn't rush back, I'd have no objection to eating here again.