The Wheatsheaf Inn

The Wheatsheaf Inn in the village of Badsey, two miles from Evesham, seemed the ideal choice. My sister also lives in the Vale of Evesham and we thought it would be nice to invite her along for a long-overdue mini family reunion.

The Wheatsheaf, which dates from the 17th century and was once a farm and bakery, is located in the old part of Badsey. It is now a fully refurbished pub and restaurant serving home-cooked food.

The pub has a two-for-£11 specials offer running from Tuesday to Friday lunchtime, but we chose from the full menu.

We were all delighted with our starters. I chose crispy breaded mushrooms with garlic dip and salad garnish (£3.95) and my brother equally enjoyed his bacon and stilton salad (£4.95).

But the real winner was my sister’s tempura battered brie with cranberry sauce with salad garnish (£4.50) – as we can all attest. We grew up in the nearby Lenches and my sister was used to having to “share” food with her three brothers.

Our re-union was just like old times. With the “Lenches rules”

in force she found she was having to give up most of her starter to her hungry brothers.

For the main course I opted for creamy chicken and stilton pasta served with garlic bread (£9.25). It really lived up to its description and there was a generous portion of chicken on top, so much in fact that even this Lenches’ boy couldn’t quite manage it all.

My brother chose surf and turf – an 8oz rump steak with scampi (£11.95) which he thoroughly enjoyed and prompted him to say about the Wheatsheaf: “It’s a bit of a hidden gem, isn’t it?”.

My sister, who loves to eat fish, asked for salmon but sadly there was none. Instead she chose a vegetarian option of mushroom stroganoff (£6.95) which she told us was the best she had ever tasted.

We were all too full to do justice to desserts but decided to share a berry sundae (£3.95) which went down very well.

The service was very good and the waitress very friendly (we discovered she had gone to the same school as the three of us) and we had a lovely evening catching up with family news reminiscing about old times.

And where better to do have done that than this historic pub right in the heart of the vale?

We felt the Wheatsheaf could perhaps do with marketing both itself and what it has to offer, a little better.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our evening.

HOW IT RATED

Food: 4
Service: 4
Value for money: 4
Ambience: 3