Dinner At The Queens Head in Belton, Leicestershire
Published On Saturday 21 Jan 2017 by Sticky Beak
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It always amazes me how vast Derbyshire is, and nothing emphasizes this more than an invitation into “foreign” territory that is a lot less miles than some towns in our wonderful county. We were very kindly invited along to sample the food at the Queens Head gastro pub in Belton, Leicestershire and when we googled how far away it was it said 29 miles.
We booked our table for 7pm thinking that the traffic might be a bit of a nightmare at rush hour, especially seeing as the journey is mainly on the motorway then just a few miles past Kegworth. How wrong we were; it only took us 40 minutes, which was a bonus.
A lovely young lady called Rebecca was unruffled by our early appearance and showed us to our table with a smile. The restaurant itself is open plan in layout with neutral coloured walls which only enhances the natural beauty of the stripped wooden floors. The upper eating level has a large, stylish fire enclosure which makes a great focal point to talk about. Church pew style high back seats provide seating on one side of the sturdy wood tables, with free standing mid back chairs the other side.
At first The Boy Wonder and I were the sole diners at the Queens Head, but as the evening went on there were others trickling in including a group of young friends (perhaps in their mid to late 20s), a family of four and then an older couple came later at about 8pm.
At the present time the Queens Head team are in the middle of redesigning their childrens menu, so the family chose off the regular menu. The boy found his dish to be a little spicy, but seemed to manage a fair bit of the portion; Rebecca offered to fetch him another choice but his mum politely declined her offer.
A short while later Rebecca returned to say that Chef asked if he could be tempted by some fish goujons, but again they said no thank you; however, like a man after my own heart the boy did have the waffles with cherries and vanilla ice cream for his pud!
The older couple also had some dietary requirements and yet again the wonderful Becca came to the rescue, guiding them through the dairy free dishes and the ones that could be adapted to be dairy free.
Anyhow, back to us. The weather was doing that typically mid winter thing of being damp, drizzly and dreary but we decided to forget all about that and have some classic comfort food to warm our bellies and hearts. We kicked our meal off with a whole baked Camembert with local Honey, Garlic and Rosemary served with rustic bread.
The Camembert was warm and gooey all the way through and was studded with whole cloves of garlic and generous sprigs of Rosemary whose flavours permeated the entire cheese. A small jug of local honey allowed us to pour as much or as little of its sweetness on to the cheese as we wanted, and there was an abundance of the rustic bread to scoop the melted cheese up with. Another simple pleasure that is hard to beat, in my humble opinion.
His Nibs had the Queens Head “Black and Blue” Burger as his main course; a prime beef patty with a braised beef croquette, roasted garlic mayo and lettuce in a Brioche bun served with triple cooked chips. His beady eye had spotted the Onion rings on the sides section of the menu, so a portion of those also got ordered. I chose grilled Lambs Liver and Bacon with creamy mash, Lyonnaise onions and red wine sauce for my main course as well as a side of Broccoli with Chilli.
The burger is a cheeky wee monkey, very deceptive when you first inspect it. You look and think “oooh, that looks fairly manageable”, but let me tell you the lightly seasoned patty itself is a whopper! Add on the braised beef croquette and that is more filling meat to contend with, so it was little wonder that The Man Bird took his time to finish this tasty morsel. He actually didn’t finish all his chips and onion rings, much as it pained him to leave those.
The chips were nice and chunky and perfectly done so that they had brilliantly crispy outers with cloud like inners; a light dusting of salt just topped them off nicely. You can’t beat a superbly crunchy batter on onion rings and the Queens Head chef does an absolute belter of one, so that the whole room can hear as you bite into it. The onion itself was nice and soft so that you can bite all the way through it rather than it all coming away in one bite and shattering the whole batter casing in its entirety.
My Liver was a fine example of its kind; lovely and tender, not too strong an Offaly taste but rich and deep nonetheless. The bacon was crisp and of generous thickness so that you got its true flavour on the palate, and the mash was just superb in its creamy smoothness. I would describe Lyonnaise onion as a sort of compote as you can still discern the onion slices but it has a sweet, slightly thicker texture to enjoy.
Top this all off with a good amount of glossy red wine sauce and you can imagine the state of glee my mouth was in, savouring all the wonderful tastes and textures of this dish. The final fantastic piece of this dish was tender stem broccoli that was still nicely crunchy and had a wonderfully gentle Chilli heat to it. Nothing went back to the kitchen from my plate :)
The sweet treats on offer were simply too yummy to resist, but extremely difficult to decide between. Eventually The Man bird opted for Lemon Sorbet and Limoncello, having changed his mind from the Homemade Waffles, Cherries jubilee and Vanilla Ice Cream. Had we not had the Camembert as our starter I would definitely have been tempted by the Cheese board, but I chose to have the Belgian Chocolate Mousse, Poached Pears and Vanilla Cream.
My Belgian chocolate mousse was lovely and rich, but light in texture so it didn’t lay heavy on the stomach. There were nice, still slightly firm Pear slices with their natural fragrant, light sweetness that contrasted beautifully against the chocolate. The vanilla cream was also wonderfully light, but wickedly sumptuous on the tongue, and I loved the dinky little biscuits that garnished the dessert dish. As a whole, it was a skilfully balanced pudding that, for me, ticked all the boxes.
His Nibs’ dessert was marvellous visually with its “sea” of Limoncello that two spheres of zesty Lemon Sorbet floated on. Sorbet is renowned for being a great palate cleanser and this one delivered a hit of freshness that is always appreciated at the end of a meal.
We had our Latte coffees at the end of the evening, and it was a nice rounded coffee blend. Rebecca had never stopped all evening bless her, I bet if she wore a Fitbit she’d have worn it out! Nothing was too much trouble for her, and the smile never left her face all evening.
Fine dining it isn’t, but it doesn’t sell itself on that basis. Good honest pub grub it certainly is; there’s plenty of food on the plate and it’s hot, so Hot Wings are awarded to the Queens Head team :)
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