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Review: The Griffin Inn
IF you were handing out marks for effort and perseverance, Liz Lindsay and her daughter, Nichi, would go to the top of the class.
The two women took over the Griffin Inn, Barkisland, two and a half years ago and in that time have tried everything imaginable to draw in the crowds.
The Griffin is one of Calderdale's best-known village pubs and dates back to 1642. As well as having lots of character, it also has its own ghost and spooky happenings are a regular occurance.
Ghosts aside, in years gone by the pub had a reputation for serving some of the best food around, and Liz and her daughter's ambition has always been to get it back to its glory days.
It's been a bit of an uphill struggle because competition has never been more fierce but the pair haven't given up without a fight.
They have tried everything including teatime specials, afternoon tea, walkers deals, Caribbean evenings, curry, pie and fish nights, psychic evenings, a quiz night and a takeaway menu and are now just starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
This is thanks in no small part to new head chef Dave Townend who works hand in hand with freelance chef Andrew Cockroft who moved to the Griffin seven months ago.
The pair's philosophy when it comes to food is to use fresh, locally sourced ingredients, make everything like sauces, gravy, chutneys and desserts from scratch and keep the menu small and reasonably simple.
The main Comfort Food menu includes five starters and desserts and seven mains and there is always a blackboard menu with another 10 dishes on it.
Pie night with lots of home-made pies is on Tuesday, curry night is Thursday and there is a fish deal every Friday. Sunday lunch is also starting to take off because they now offer one course for 5.50.
We visited on a Sunday evening and I was pleasantly surprised how busy the pub was. The ambiance hits you as you walk through the door. There are lamps in the window, candles and fresh flowers on the table and fires in every room.
It's touches like this that make it appealing to women, but men like it too, for a different reason.
The pub has two hand-pulled beers on offer plus different guest beers every week.
Our food was faultless. I started with a very filling chicken-and-bacon salad followed by pan-seared salmon on a bed of roasted potatoes and vegetables finished with pesto.
My other half had deep-fried brie with a home-made chutney followed by crayfish, tiger prawn and salmon risotto. Risotto can often look bland but this was bursting with flavour as was my son's sirloin steak. It was pink in the middle just as he ordered it and came with big, fat home-made chips and a rich pepper sauce.
Not one of us could face a pudding, which was a shame because there were several that took our fancy, but there is always the next time.
Two words of warning. Prices are the same as you would pay in a restaurant and the later you go the less choice you are left with.
Both the gammon and slow-roast confit of lamb had sold out when we were there.
Liz and Nichi's next move is to develop the restaurant at the back of the pub, and offer fine dining in there. Like I said if at first you don't succeed...
Details
Name: The Griffin Inn
Address: 57, Stainland Road, Barkisland
Telephone: 01422 823873
Courier reviews conducted without the prior knowledge of the restaurant
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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