The Narrows, Abingdon

While it will probably delight many to hear me say so — such a pleb! — I consider it no cause for shame to own that I am an admirer of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain. Cheap and cheerful interspersed with a little conspicuous luxury has been my maxim in life, and to hell with the boring middle ground. Wetherspoons suits very nicely the former category, just as obviously as the latter embraces both London’s Cafe Royal, where I dined last Thursday, and Le Gavroche, where I had lunch on Tuesday.

Wetherspoons has been in business since the late 1970s, the woeful decade that gave us, among much other tat, the mullet haircut, which the company’s high-profile chairman Tim Martin still sports. Over the years the chain has built up a reputation for supplying halfway decent food and some excellent drink, beer especially, though I no longer touch it.

Its customers comprise a pretty wide cross-section of the public, snobs apart, and include many people who might otherwise find themselves priced out of the market.

My patronage has much to do with my work as a theatre reviewer, there being a suitable Wetherspoon for a cheap pre-show meal at most of the venues I regularly visit, including Aylesbury, Stratford, High Wycombe, Northampton and Cheltenham.

I seldom travel from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 without a bracer, and a ham and cheese panini, at the company’s Crown Rivers overlooking one of the runways. Rosemarie and I have even tried two Wetherspoon hotels, in King’s Lynn and Weston-super-Mare, with considerable enjoyment and have plans to visit a third, in Whitby. Someone we met in the White Hart in Aylesbury — we Wetherspooners are a sociable and chatty lot — told us how good it was, with a fine sea view (and garlic to ward off vampires).

So you will guess that I had to be among the first to take a shufty at Wetherspoon’s newest outlet, The Narrows, in Abingdon, converted at a cost of £1.2m from the town’s former post office and bearing the old name of the stretch of the High Street (still noticeably constricted) in which it stands. It opened on Tuesday of last week, when it was stuffed to the rafters owing to the Michaelmas Fair which was thronging the streets outside. We visited the following evening when things were calmer, but still busy.

Like almost all Wetherspoon pubs, The Narrows is a big place, with a fine design supplied by Helen and Paul Stephens. The name, as it turns out, seems appropriate to its own layout, for though the place is wide, it is much, much longer. Beginning at a ‘pubby’ section at the front, you pass along a wide ‘corridor’ without table seating to a more foodie part at the back, where the walls are lined with photographs and other memorabilia associated with the building’s role in postal and telephone services.

The upstairs loos build on this theme with house-style glass-panelled doors (pink for girls, blue for boys) with postboxes and images of telephone kiosks inside. The urinal bowls are an eye-catching bright red.

Now what about the food? It happens that The Narrows’ opening coincided with a revamped menu for Wetherspoon and also with a decision to extend food service from 10pm to 11pm. New dishes include pasta pomodoro, new-recipe lasagne, a salmon salad and a couple of new hot dogs, BBQ with cheese and pulled pork, and Mexican with cheese, salsa, guacamole and chilli peppers.

Also introduced is a Wednesday Chicken Club, adding to those for steak, curries, and fish and chips already operated on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Seeing this advertised in a leaflet on our table, it had been my intention to try one of the dishes (chicken breast and pepper skewers) that come at a price of just £6.59 with a choice of drink (beer, wine or spirit). These cut-price deals are a feature of the ‘clubs’.

I changed my mind, though, when I reached the bar and saw, on a promotional card there, details of a manager’s offer, which included various grills for £6.99 or, for the 14oz Aberdeen Angus rump steak, which I fancied, for £7.99. Since this normally costs £11.85, with a drink included, this was an obvious saving. But Rosemarie’s choice of dish, gammon and eggs, actually cost more this way. We paid £6.99, plus £2.29 for a gin and tonic. If we had ordered from the normal menu, it would have cost £7.45 with the drink thrown in. Something wrong here, then . . .

I, too, ordered a gin and tonic, a large Tanqueray and slimline tonic, the price of which (£3.29) seems, in comparison with some pubs, almost from another age. Draught beers are priced upwards from £2.29. The impressive range included Adnam’s Ghost Ship, Rebellion Gangplank, Loddon bitter, Ruddles, Whale Ale and Colley’s Dog. To accompany the food, I ordered a bottle of Hardy’s punchy Shiraz — a mere £7.19.

The extremely helpful young man behind the bar was full of apology for the fact that the food would take 20 minutes to come. This would seem, in other places, more like something to boast about.

When it arrived there was little to complain of in my pink, well-flavoured steak, which came with a good-size flat mushroom, grilled tomato, plenty of peas and excellent chips. I also ordered spicy coated king prawns to create my own version of a ‘surf and turf’. They were big and juicy, with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Mention of sauce reminds me that the ones here (including Heinz tomato ketchup and HP, plus mustard, mayonnaise and vinegar) come in a rack of bottles on the table, a much better arrangement than all those fiddly little sachets supplied at other Wetherspoons. Let us hope they are rolling this out across the estate.

Rosemarie judged her gammon not so good as the chain usually supplies, saltier than she likes. The fried eggs were overcooked too. But she was smiling again with her Belgian waffle with ice-cream and maple syrup, though the sight of its 757 calorie count (the information is usefully supplied on the menu) persuaded her to leave half on the plate.

Opening times: Monday to Thursday: 8am to midnight; Friday and Saturday: 8am to 1am; Sunday: 8am to midnight. Food served 8am till 11pm daily. n

Parking: Use car parks in the town.
 

Key personnel: Manager Becky Schwartz; kitchen manager Kat Powers.
 

Make sure you try the... two meals for £6.99 offer, including British steak and kidney pudding, five-bean chilli and ham, eggs and chips. Pub classics including large battered cod and chips (£6.30), lasagne (£4.45), sausages and mash (£5.45) and salmon fillet (£7.99). Grill choices, all including a drink, feature 14oz Aberdeen Angus rump steak (£11.85), 10oz gammon with eggs (£7.45), large mixed grill with gammon, pork loin, rump steak, lamb, Lincolnshire sausages, egg and beer-battered onion rings (£10.75). Range of burgers at £4.29 with a soft drink and £5.29 with alcoholic drink. Carrot cake (£1.99) and Belgian waffle (£2.70).

In ten words: Stylish newcomer offers good-value food and drink in tasteful surroundings.