Crockers
Tring, Hertfordshire
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Following a trial-run pop-up in nearby Potten End, Crockers decamped to Tring in 2018 and is now one of the town's prized culinary assets. Behind the understated battleship-grey frontage, the action plays out across three floors, with pride of place going to the ‘chef’s table’ arena reached via two flights of stairs. This is an agreeable contemporary space with copper-clad walls, a battery of hanging lamps illuminating the pass, a three-sided counter and 16 leather stools arranged ringside. All eyes are on chef Scott Barnard, a natural front man who regales guests with informed and entertaining banter as successive courses appear. Tasting menus open with modish snacks and splendid bread – don’t miss the crusty, yeasty mini loaf laced with beer from Tring Brewery. A procession of savoury dishes highlights the kitchen’s precise, tweezered attention to detail and its respect for seasonal ingredients. A piece of gently cooked Cornish turbot is embellished with mussels and burnished golden-yellow smoked pike roe, while succulent Anjou pigeon sits well with its companions – celeriac, buckwheat, pear and a drizzle of honey vinegar to cut through the gamey richness. The cheese course is an elegantly constructed miniature, while dessert sees the kitchen playing tricks with the classics – as in a delightfully reimagined rhubarb cheesecake adorned with dots of rhubarb gel, a lozenge of rhubarb sorbet and shards of perfumed rose meringue. By contrast, the high-ceilinged ground-floor room offers a more sedate vibe, charmingly attentive service and food with a gentler price tag. A truncated tasting menu (£55) and a no-brainer lunch deal (£35, Fri and Sat only) bring the likes of slow-cooked pork belly with confit celeriac, lovage, cabbage and pear purée – fabulously melting meat with thoughtfully chosen seasonal accompaniments. And if you fancy a pre/post-prandial drink in the evening, head to the cellar bar for belting cocktails and eclectic wines from a cherry-picked, 50-strong list with plenty of surprises.
