Only last year I would have given this pub a full 5-star rating but the place seems to have come under new management. Sometimes new management is good and sometimes it is bad. This time, it is bad.
When we first arrived in Stokey last year it was a regular haunt for us of a weekday afternoon for coffees, hot chocolates, nibbles and then weekday dinners. The food was always good.
In the last month I have met people here for dinner twice and can say I won't be meeting anyone there for dinner again. The menu – despite have the day's date on it – hardly changes. The attempt at more upmarket food falls flat: 'Chilli (and something I can't remember) Poussin & Shoestring fries = chicken and chips. It's not even good chicken and chips, it's decidedly average since the flavouring on the Poussin is just on the skin and as soon as you've done with that it's just a lot of (dry) white meat. The shoestring fries (or whatever they called them) were a stupid idea too. Since they are so thin they go cold almost as soon as the waitress has placed the plate down.
The slow roast belly pork was equally disappointing. First things first, it clearly wasn't slow roasted – the fat hadn't rendered down at all. I can't even remember what else was on the plate, but I will say that I ordered a side of “fat chips” which, for £3-4 was a rip off. You get about 6 chips, don't bother.
Nothing was helped by the waitress, who forgot almost everything. It took us a full 10 minutes to get mayonaise & ketchup out of her, and she obviously forgot to order my side of chips (and lied about it — “they're just coming”) since they arrived almost as soon as i was about to finish my plate!
So no more dinners there for us. And, no more afternoons either since I recently discovered that they now don't do soy milk. Big mistake in this part of town I think. I often used to go in for hot drinks with soy and stay for hours re-ordering.
Take your money elsewhere, the new manager obviously doesn't want it!