The Bull's Head, Craswall, Herefordshire gastropub review

I love the charm of country pubs with their roaring fireplaces, picturesque settings, and historic buildings.

But boozing and guzzling in a rural setting normally poses a bit of a challenge when Mrs G and I invariably both want a drink or two.

It means that normally I (i.e. always) end up as designated driver.

So, having spotted there was a campsite just a few minutes’ walk from The Bull’s Head at Craswall in the Black Mountains on the border between England and Wales, I hatched a plan for a night away with friends.

After pitching our tent, we yomped up the Black Hill to work up an appetite, before heading over to the pub for dinner.

Placed 33 in the most recent Top 50 Gastropubs list, the Bull’s Head is a refurbished drovers inn with plenty of charming original features.

Owned by Wild by Nature, the Bull’s Head’s understated cooking utilises seasonal ingredients from the company’s own regenerative farm as well as a network of small local producers.

The bottles of wine we ordered, a Saint Vincent Chardonnay (£28) from the Pays D’Oc and an Antiche Vie Chianti (£36), were both good although the white could have been more chilled.

We went straight into the snacks and golden Welsh rarebit croquettes (£4) were filled with a pokey, mustardy molten cheese sauce and buried under a drift of salty parmesan.

To start, a brick of a short rib croquette (£12) yielded a core of tender, big-flavoured shredded beef. Excellent accompaniments took it up a gear - a thick, rich and herby sauce gribiche, well-dressed peppery rocket and zingy pink pickled onions.

A chunky smoked mackerel rillette (£12) let its headline ingredient do the talking. The homely dish was accompanied by a mountain of rye cracker shards and another excellent salad of pickled fennel and radishes.

Lobster ravioli (£16) was described as some of the best pasta our friend had eaten in a while. The well-filled, delicate pasta cases were bathed in a corker of a sherry and shellfish sauce.

Onto mains, and the Bull’s Head clearly knows how to source and cook a fine bit of meat.

Rare breed pork slices (£26) were tender, melting of fat and had good flavour. Sat on a bed of soft and delicately spiced harissa beans and accompanied by charred spring onions, it was a delicious piece of pork cookery.

A sharing wing-rib of 40-day dry aged Belted Galloway beef (£75) was a new cut on me. I imagine it must be the part of the cow where a rib meets the bingo wing. It was a fabulous cut of meat – cooked rare to medium-rare in different places, the ruby red slices were gorgeously tender with an excellent beefiness.

It was elevated by some atypical accompaniments, a compelling smoked beetroot ketchup that should be sold by the bottle, salt baked onions, vibrant greens, and a superbly meaty bone marrow and peppercorn sauce. This was one hell of a steak dish.

Sides were all riproarers too.

Golden chips (£5) looked suspiciously uniform in texture, but they’d been fried in beef dripping to render them rustlingly crisp and addictively savoury. A pot of honking aioli wasn’t half bad too.

Romaine lettuce (£5) had been assertively charred over wood fire to give it an addictive smokiness and crisp edges. A creamy and tangy buttermilk dressing tempered the char.

Braised bitter greens (£6) contrasted beautifully with the savoury hit of anchovy and warmth of Espelette chilli.

Desserts brought the only misstep of the meal.

A sticky toffee pudding (£9) looked the business, but the cake’s crumb was disappointingly dry. Thankfully, a ton of roasted hay butterscotch sauce and thick vanilla ice cream did some heavy lifting to turn it into a decent pud.

A very grown-up take on strawberries and cream (£8) saw marsala booze-charged berries piled on top of thick vanilla whipped cream and served alongside an excellent shortbread biscuit.

A glass of vin doux (£6) ordered to accompany dessert eventually showed up at almost the exact same time we were told the pub needed our table back without any pre-warning. Service was otherwise faultless throughout the meal, but this made for an unexpectedly rushed end to the evening.

Still, as we were stumbling distance from the campsite, we wandered back for a nightcap and bedded down in the field adjacent to the rare breed pigs. I certainly felt among good company.

The Bull’s Head is a top-drawer country pub and I can see why it was packed out on our visit. If you’re thinking of visiting and want to avoid squabbling about who’s designated driver then I’d highly recommend pitching a tent down the road. Or if you’re a little more luxuriously inclined, the Bull’s Head also happen to have their own quartet of cabins.

The Details:

Address - The Bull's Head, Craswall, Hereford HR2 0PN

Web - https://www.wildbynaturellp.com/the-bulls-head-inn

Telephone - 01981 510616

The Beefy Boys, Hereford, burger restaurant review

To say that the story of Hereford’s Beefy Boys is impressive is an understatement.

Originally a team of amateur cooks from Hereford with a passion for burgers and bbq, they entered Grillstock in 2014 and won the title of best burger. Wow.

They then represented the UK at the World Food Championships in Las Vegas where they competed against 50 other chefs for the title of world’s best burger. They came second overall with their butty bach burger winning in the final. Double wow.

The Beefy Boys used their winnings from Vegas to open their first restaurant in Hereford, an industrial space with corrugated metal, wood-panelling and strip lighting.

Unsurprisingly, the menu is dominated by burgers; there’s sixteen of them (plus specials) including chicken and veggie options.

A salted caramel milkshake was big on flavour and topped with a nice piece of gooey brownie. But for me it was too thin and milky. Mrs G disagreed. 

We ordered a few sides to go with our burgers.

Hella crisp mac and cheese balls (£4) were as filthy-tasty as it gets; crisp crumbs gave way to velvety macaroni cheese. 

They were topped with parmesan, chives and crisp bacon shards and accompanied by a smokey spicy chipotle ketchup. 

Ninja wings (£4) were twice cooked giving them a super crisp exterior that was coated in a sweet, sticky, savoury glaze of soy, garlic and honey. Whilst they were tender, they weren’t the juiciest of wings I’ve eaten, perhaps a result of the double cooking process. 

Millionaire fries (£3.50) were topped with an indulgent combination of funky truffle oil, parmesan and chives. Whilst truffle oil often dominates, in this case it harmonised well with everything else. 

A burger lives and dies by the quality of its patty and this is where the Beefy Boys shine. 21 day aged Hereford beef is ground coarsely daily and is the sole ingredient in their patties (other than seasoning). Served a perfectly pink medium they’re big on flavour with a robust yet juicy texture.

The second most important element, the bun, is killer too. Their squidgy but sturdy and not too sweet semi-brioche buns are made by local baker Peter Cook using a sourdough starter. 

I ordered the Beefy Boy (£8), the signature burger. A messy beast, it was topped with crisp streaky bacon, oozy melted American cheese and Swiss cheese, lettuce, red onion and richness piercing gherkin. The kicker was a liberal dollop of secret special sauce - a creamy and tangy number that reminded me of Big Mac sauce but without the gherkin.

Mrs G’s Bacon Boy (£9) was topped with double bacon, bacon mayo, American and Swiss cheese, lettuce, red onion and gherkin. The only let down was a slice of fridge cold beef tomato that did its accompaniments no justice. 

We had a kick-ass lunch at Beefy Boys. Their quality is absolutely top drawer and they're great value to boot. If you’re ever in the Hereford area, make sure you visit to recalibrate your burger expectations.

The Details:

Address - The Beefy Boys, Old Market, Hereford HR4 9HU

Web - http://thebeefyboys.com/

Telephone - 01432 359209