This is, of course, a very different kind of place. The Hand and Flowers may hold two Michelin stars, but it’s still a pub in a charming small town along a mostly rural stretch of the Thames—not a temple of modern design patronised by the capital’s great, good and glamorous. Different in no way means inferior. If anything, the pub ethos only adds to the magic.
I’ve been lucky to dine at a generous number of Michelin-starred restaurants (see the index of reviews in the left column). They all serve exceptional food, and most start with luxury ingredients and gourmet concepts. It’s fancy from the first idea.
The Hand and Flowers starts from a different place: wholesome, traditional British comfort food. Like classic Italian cooking, it builds on a foundation of simple ingredients—beef, duck, pastry, potato—in deceptively straightforward preparations, executed to an insanely high standard.
Take the amuse bouche, for example. A bite-sized sausage roll with a side of spiced mayo. The stuff of a hundred summer picnics, a familiar taste guaranteed to put a smile of both recollection and anticipation on your face. Here, the familiar is transformed into something almost unrecognisable. The meat is so smooth and perfectly spiced, the pastry so flaky, the mayo such an exquisite complement that it’s hardly still a humble sausage roll. And yet it envelops you in the warm emotional blanket of comfort food.
That’s the one-two punch that makes this place special: the nostalgic hug of the familiar, delivered with the dazzling artistry of fine dining.
We started with dishes we might easily choose at our local: pork and mushroom terrine for me, duck liver parfait for the birthday boy. I was seriously tempted by the parfait, too, but had duck lined up for my main course and wanted to mix things up. As with the sausage roll, both starters took the familiar and elevated them into the gourmet stratosphere. My terrine was an explosion of umami, balanced by the sharp tang of minuscule dill pickles and pickled onions.
But Piers’ parfait was the clear winner. Neither of us has ever tasted that combination of rich flavour and light texture before—so smooth it had the consistency of top-quality gelato, but at room temperature. A chat with the staff—and a helpful browse through the Hand and Flowers cookbook—revealed that even with a week at the Gascony Cooking School and the ability to make our own foie gras, we’d never come close. The processes, steps and specialist equipment used to put that perfect quenelle on the plate were nothing short of wizardry.
The main course had its own amuse bouche in the form of a spectacular bottle of wine. We let the sommelier guide us, and he delivered something worthy of the occasion: Habla No. 30 from a small vineyard in Trujillo, in the Extremadura region of Spain. If I had to limit myself to just one red wine for the rest of my life, this might be it. It’s full of fruit (the producer says tropical; I tasted dark berry) but balanced with black pepper and herb. That balance is its magic. It has the punch of flavour I love in bold Malbecs or Cab Sauvs, but with a delicacy and lightness that nods to my husband’s preference for elegant French Pinot Noirs. A perfect compromise.
A memorable wine deserves memorable food. And out it came.
I had the Devon duck breast and cherry “pie” with duck liver, marmalade sauce and crispy duck fat potatoes. The “pie” was actually a slice of roulade, styled like a Wellington: crisp pastry, a blanket of duxelles and liver wrapped around perfectly pink duck breast. My only quibble—there wasn’t much cherry on the palate, and the sauce could have used a bit more fruitiness to balance the tang of the liver. But that’s a small note. I loved every bite. The crispy duck fat potatoes showed exactly why Tom Kerridge is famous for his triple-cooked chips. Outstanding.
And yet I only ate one, giving the rest to my husband—not just because it was his birthday, but because his main came with mash, which he didn’t fancy. We’d been served each other’s favourites, so we swapped. Not that he needed anything extra to elevate the perfection of his 30-day dry-aged fillet of beef with potato-buttermilk waffle, crème fraîche and chive butter, and sauce bordelaise. We are highly competent cooks, confident with meat. We go to a top-quality butcher. We have great pans. And yet we’ve never managed a steak like this. A hot, crispy, flavourful bark on the outside. Extremely rare within. Sauce as smooth as silk sliding over a baby’s stomach. We might get close on the steak with more butter and higher heat. The sauce? That’s another realm. As for the potato-buttermilk waffle—in a world of deep-fried delights, it’s near the top.
Despite generous portions and plentiful bread, I heroically found room for dessert: a malted nougat delice, essentially a thin slice of wicked indulgence with cocoa, ale, smoked toffee and hop ice cream. I confess to being unsophisticated on the chocolate front—I usually prefer milk to gourmet dark—but this grown-up version turned my head. The ale, smoke and hops added sharpness and bitterness that lifted the whole thing far above the average chocoholic hit.
Piers, meanwhile, went for the cheese board. I was far too full to help, but he marched bravely up that hill, tackling a generous selection of English classics (including my beloved Baron Bigod) and French sophistication. I was particularly impressed with the accompaniments: not just ordinary biscuits, but hand-made crunchy sheets topped with seeds and nuts, a date bread salad, and yet another perfect little sausage roll. All washed down with a tawny port.
I’ve not always nailed the birthday brief for my husband, but this one brought him to his culinary happyplace and pushed all the right buttons.
There is a set lunch: three courses for £65, or two for £55. With a specialty soda or a pint of beer, you could walk away for under £100 per person. But it was a milestone birthday, and our eyes inevitably drifted to the most tempting items on the menu. We didn’t hold back. This is what we save for, and it was worth every penny.
Where else can you find comfort food turned into pure magic?
There's a video of our experience on TikTok. If you scroll there, find me as BencardsBites.