Gray Ox

Hartshead Lane, Liversedge

Rating 9/10

Venue Gray Ox

Tel 01274 872845

Website www.grayoxinn.co.uk

Opening hours Monday to Saturday, noon until last orders at 2pm and from 6pm. Sunday all day.

ChildrenChildren’s portions are available

Disabled access Straight from car park into ground floor dining - narrow doorways, however.

The bill£65.30 for two, including drinks

THIS is the era of the gastro pub. But that doesn’t mean any old publican can pull a few steak and kidney puds with gigantic puff pastry tops out of the freezer, pop them in the oven, and lay claim to the title.

Gastro pubs should be about solid home-cooking with local ingredients and, perhaps, a certain modern flair.

It takes a kitchen staffed by people who know what they’re doing to produce food that wouldn’t be out of place in a fine dining room and yet feels at home in a cosy British pub.

The Gray Ox, however, has consistently managed to do this and attracts diners from far and wide. Ring up for a last-minute table and you’re likely to be disappointed.

The Man-in-Charge dined there with his colleagues a couple of weeks back and was so impressed he insisted we go there for an early doors Saturday dinner. (They managed to squeeze us in at 6pm).

The ivy-covered inn is a true country pub, nestling on a hillside along a lane that seems to lead nowhere in particular. It’s the sort of place that needs a good reputation or no-one would make the effort to find it.

However, even at 6pm the bar was packed and by the time we left at 8pm the restaurant areas were also full. I found out why.

The food was not quite faultless, but almost. There were no incidents; no problems; no issues with waiting staff. It was a perfectly pleasant, uneventful meal, promptly and politely served.

Prices at the Gray Ox range from starters at around the £6/£7 mark to main courses at £17/£18. The puddings were universally £4.95. It’s not cheap by any means but this is a menu that keeps its promises.

For starters The Man chose a platter of smoked fish, with smoked salmon roulade, smoked haddock and a fish cake. I need say no more than it was the same starter he’d clearly enjoyed on his previous visit.

I chose the filo parcel of goat’s cheese with a beetroot marmalade. The beetroot was sweet, succulent and a perfect companion to the cheese. If I was to have any niggling complaints it would be that the filo pastry was too thick and chewy at the point where it had been ‘parcelled.’ But The Man says I’ve been watching too much MasterChef.

Our main courses were Grassingham duck cooked four ways and John Dory with mussels and a vegetable broth.

The duck, he said, was excellent and even though he’d expressed some doubt over whether he would eat the livers they were pronounced “delicious.”

My fish was moist and delicately flavoured, with fennel in the broth, and offered an enjoyable lighter option.

The dishes of roast potatoes and vegetables that came with our main courses were, to a large extent, surplus to requirements but nice to have.

We shared a pudding, a trio of vanilla-based exceedingly yummy things – ice cream, pannacotta and a shot glass of vanilla cream.

The Gray Ox menu is short enough to inspire confidence but offers enough variety to give choice. It could be said the choices are on the calorific side and there’s not much for the diner on a weight-reducing diet (or the vegetarian), but this is a place for a special meal out; a place to throw calorie counters in the bin; a place to simply sit back and take in the ancient wooden beams, convivial atmosphere and tuck in to the sort of food that gives the term gastro pub a good name.