The Loch and The Tyne Review

Relaunched in 2021 by renowned tv-featured chef Adam Handling, The Loch and The Tyne in the historic village of Old Windsor is a gastropub with a growing food reputation. Having received both a Michelin Bib Gourmand and three AA Rosettes since opening, it can with some justification lay claim to being the best gastropub in the UK without a Michelin star. I was therefore feeling pretty confident of receiving a top class meal as I rocked up for dinner on a sunny Thursday evening, with my wife and two young children.

There's a good sized car park behind the venue and as we made our way inside, the welcome on arrival was perfectly warm. Internally it's a smart venue and feels spacious; we were sat on a good sized table overlooking the front terrace. The only thing I wasn't super keen on decor wise was the massive abundance of dried flowers (they even sat atop every napkin), but I'm sure there's some deep and meaningful reason for those. One other issue was our table was a bit too close to the central island in the dining area, so the staff kept bumping into my wife's chair as they were taking things out of drawers, but that could be solved with some fairly minor adjustment.

On offer at dinner is a sizeable carte menu with plenty of choice, there's also a three course children's menu which was great to see. Drinks wise, there's a solid wine list and we were provided with a drinks list on request. I was expecting a little bit more from the drinks list to be honest; although there was a good range of cocktails, there were zero non-alcoholic options listed (just a general 'we can make any cocktails alcohol free on request', which is a bit uninspired) plus the range of other spirits was quite a lot smaller than what the restaurant lists on their website. But such is life, in the end I just had a Boatyard gin and tonic whilst my wife and kids stuck with lemonade.

Placing our order for food was surprisingly problematic. Firstly our waitress was trying to push a single remaining portion of beef wellington; I did feel for her a bit as she was still trying a couple of tables later, I mean Christ, just use it for a staff meal, one remaining portion of something made God knows when (I guess the previous Sunday? We were there on Thursday) is not a very appetising offer. Then it transpired the Mackerel dish my wife ordered was actually quite different to what was listed on the menu and had been for some time (not really a problem, but you'd expect a decent restaurant to update the menu).

Lastly even ordering a side of chips created confusion; we ordered some for my young son and I asked if they could please come with the starters (a pretty normal request). Then when ordering my main the waitress asked if I'd like any sides to which I replied "No I'm fine, thank you". After taking the order she then confirmed (or so I thought) "So you'd like your chips to come with the starters" to which I replied "Yes please". Well, I've still no idea how, but we ended up with two portions of chips with the starters, the first time in several hundred award winning restaurant visits that I've managed to order something by accident. And yes I know, it's only a portion of chips, but that is basic, basic stuff.

As for the starters themselves, they were actually very nice. My haggis scotch egg was well executed with a generous helping of punchy mustard mayo, and my wife very much enjoyed the aforementioned barbecued mackerel dish. My young son was perfectly happy with his (two portions of) chips, whilst my daughter enjoyed the cheese doughnuts from the children's menu.

The time for the mains to arrive was spot on, and I enjoyed my lamb with wild garlic and asparagus. Some of the lamb was chewier than I would have liked, but the flavours were good and it was a well constructed plate. My wife enjoyed her soft cheese ravioli with mushrooms and sage too; it was nothing particularly memorable, but a perfectly edible dish. And my daughter had no issues with her burger from the children's menu.

After some decent savoury courses, there was little chance of us leaving without dessert, and that proved to be a pretty wise choice. My trifle (a signature of the restaurant) was very tasty, whilst my wife also enjoyed a neatly constructed and flavoursome dish of coffee, hazelnut and white chocolate. The kids too were very happy with some mango sorbet and strawberry ice cream.

And so, after collecting the bill with minimal fuss, a fairly enjoyable dinner came to an end. Overall we enjoyed our visit here, the cooking was of a good standard albeit I'd been hoping for a little bit more wow factor in places. The menu pacing was spot on too with our meal taking just under an hour and a half, which for an early evening three course meal with the kids, is pretty spot on in my view.

There were though quite a few niggles with service (although the staff were all very pleasant); as well as the issues at the start of the meal, when receiving the bill I noticed we'd been charged for still water (despite asking for and receiving tap water) and also they'd included an unrequested charity donation on the bill, with no mention of it being optional. Now look, I have no issue with optional charity donations via menu choices, or even an optional question on the card machine as I've seen also, but to just automatically include a forced donation I find unnecessarily self-righteous - there was a phase of restaurants doing this a few years ago, but I genuinely thought it had stopped. If a customer is spending money in your establishment, you really shouldn't enforce where they may or may not wish to make charitable donations.

There's no automatically included service charge (which I guess many would see as a positive), but when leaving a tip on the card machine as I always do, I'm then paying a percentage again for items we'd not received and the unrequested charity donation. And yes of course, I could have got enraged in the restaurant, made a massive fuss and demanded these things were removed, but why should I need to, restaurants should just get this right in the first place.

All those service niggles, although each fairly minor in isolation, did total up as the evening went on to make our meal an unexpectedly frustrating experience. But having said all that, I have no issue proclaiming this is a very good family friendly restaurant and although I won't be rushing back any time soon, I certainly wouldn't object to eating here again in future.