For the Love of British Food

I haven’t always been polite about the JD Wetherspoon pub chain in the past, but I visited with a friend to try their Sunday Lunch special offer at the weekend and, with a few reservations had a reasonably happy experience. 

There are several JDW pubs in our area, and we chose the Dolphin and Anchor in Chichester, pleasantly situated across the road from the Cathedral. 

While I can’t say it was as good as home cooked, and there were a few things that needed improvement, and attention to detail, it was a fairly tasty and well priced meal out. The portions are generous by British standards, although USA visitors may find them smaller than they are used to.

There is a choice of meats all coming with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, stuffing balls and gravy/sauce.

The vegetables were curiously a totally different temperature to the rest of the meal which was correctly hot. My carrots and broccoli florets had been shown the microwave very quickly, which was OK for the carrots, but the broccoli was so cold as to be almost icy. The peas, by comparison were on the verge of being overcooked and going wrinkly.  As the pub was busy,  I didn’t complain - this time, though I will if we go again.

My lamb was supposed to be braised shoulder, but I would recognise the cut on my plate as a lamb shank. It was tender and tasty and the mint flavoured gravy was pleasant, if a little glutinous.

My friend chose roast beef.  His comment was that it was a bit overcooked and dry but there was plenty of gravy to go with it. He had the same vegetable problem as I did.

The meals include a glass of wine or pint of beer and there is a choice of other drinks apart from these. That being considered, it is good value.  The roast beef meal was £7.10 and the lamb option was £8.99. For the same price as the beef, we could have chosen from roast chicken, or roast pork or a vegetarian roast made from mushrooms and pulses.

We could have chosen from a good selection of traditional desserts (at an extra cost), but the main course was more than enough on this occasion.

I have to say, we have had the Sunday lunch offering elsewhere and it has been better cooked. As I said, just needs a bit of attention to the trimmings and a check by the chef that every item on every plate that goes out is properly hot.

In terms of ambience and atmosphere, the Dolphin and Anchor is an old building with stone flagged floors and quite low ceilings in most of the area.  Long before it was taken over by this pub chain it was a coach house and a hotel.  In common with most JDW outlets, there is no music, and the sound on the big screen TV’s, showing Sky news was turned down permitting comfortable conversation.

The cloakrooms are upstairs which is not ideal for the many older customers. There is a disabled facility downstairs, but you’ll have to navigate a wheelchair or electric buggy right the way through the pub to the very back. I noticed at one point, someone had parked a baby buggy right across it, but this had been moved later on. Perhaps a ‘keep clear’ on the door would help and some more obvious signage for the cloakrooms as well.

Mr Wetherspoon, you could potentially attract more customers without the little disappointments we found. I’ll be visiting some other JDW outlets in the near future,  and maybe, if I am on my own rather than in company, I’ll be having a word with the manager if the meal is not up to scratch.  In the meantime 7/10 is the best score I could give on this occasion.