The White Swan Review

Largely thanks to the dreaded COVID lockdowns, it had been around three years to the day since my last visit to The White Swan in the village of Fence, near Burnley. Glowing praise for the restaurant has continued to flow during my absence though, including the award of three AA rosettes in September 2022, an accolade I'd predicted would be bestowed on my first visit four years ago. And so, it was with a great sense of anticipation that I rocked up for dinner with a friend, on a cold November Saturday.

We arrived bang on time for our reservation; the welcome was warm and we were shown to our table in the main dining room. The decor is very much as I remember, it looks like a local pub as much as anything. It's not exactly a spacious room which does go some way to explaining why the tables are all fairly close together, but you can't really begrudge any restaurant fitting in as many people as possible, and it wasn't uncomfortably close by any means.

It's a single tasting menu only for dinner, and there's a decent wine/drinks list too with plenty of options. I enjoyed a Batch gin and tonic to start plus the matching wine flight during my meal, whilst my friend stuck with some glasses of Shiraz during his.

Before the meal began, the first drama of the evening was unfortunately very much our fault. Unbeknownst to me, since I last saw my friend, he's managed to develop a shellfish allergy; not ideal when the first dish on the tasting menu was prawn! In fairness to him, he had tried to call the restaurant on the day and not been able to get through, but our waitress handled it perfectly calmly and there was no issue from the kitchen who made a late switch to cod.

Dinner began with a pre-meal little soup which was suitably warming for a winters evening, and the bread (served with butter and hummus) was decent also. The first course proper was a tempura carabineros prawn, served with seaweed and a red curry sauce. The prawn cooking was faultless and overall it was a very enjoyable dish with a decent whack of heat.

Next came a piece of organic salmon with English wasabi buttermilk, yuzu and cucumber. I really enjoyed this plate also, the fish was lovely and again the heat was nicely balanced. Although I'd very much enjoyed both fish courses, the mutton served with "autumn roots", maitake, madeira and mint was probably my favourite of the savoury courses. Every element was executed nigh on perfectly, and the overall dish was delicious.

Desserts began with an enjoyable take on a tiramisu, and finished with a very tasty rendition of a sticky toffee pudding, served with a salted butterscotch disk and vanilla ice cream. Although perhaps not quite as strong as the savoury courses, I enjoyed both desserts and would happily eat either again at any time. To finish, my friend and I shared a few slices of cheese from the impressive cheeseboard, accompanied by bread crackers and truffle honey.

And so after a nice cappuccino and some very tasty domed chocolate petit fours, our thoroughly enjoyable meal came to an end. I'd say the standard of food being served has moved forward again since my previous visit and there was some very accomplished cooking on show. The wine flight was enjoyable too and not expensive versus what you'd expect to pay for a wine flight at most 1* venues, and there was no issue finding me a decent glass of Port to go with the cheese course either. The wines weren't poured at the table as I usually prefer, but in this kind of pub environment, I didn't really mind that.

Service was good throughout and friendly also; the only major slip up was my final wine (to accompany the sticky toffee pudding) was delivered quite some time after I'd finished eating the dish. I didn't complain but the gentleman serving was very apologetic (he'd got stuck on the phone) and took several drinks off our bill by way of compensation. I always think if a restaurant makes an error, the important thing is how they handle it (so many high end restaurants would just shrug their shoulders and do nothing), but he couldn't have handled it any better than he did, and it turned a potential negative into a really positive part of the experience.

Yes (as with so many restaurants) the pricing has increased substantially since my last visit, but I felt the meal here was still excellent value given the quality of food and service. I wish the team continued success and look forward to my fourth visit in the hopefully not too distant future.