With over 20 years of catering experience and a Master of the Craft Guild Of Chefs, Mike will always be at the helm in the kitchen cooking and presenting your food (Some would say it is the best place for him, we haven’t worked out yet whether that’s a compliment or not!!) and we are committed to giving you well cooked, proper
tasty food that is exactly
what it says
it is.
EAT
Things have certainly moved on just a little in the world of Pub Food since a rock hard, cling filmed ‘Crusty Cob’ on the back of a bar and a packet of ‘Cheese and Onion’ was about your lot, although we’re still very happy to supply a little ‘Haute Cuisine’ in the form of the old ‘Somerset Salad’ on request, that’s a pickled egg in a packet of crisps in case you didn’t know!
There have been many styles and ‘inspirations’ since then, some good, some… not quite so good!
We don’t have an industrial sized kitchen, banks of high tech. kit or a brigade of Chef’s running around. We cook things in a traditional way and don’t pretend to be or want to be a fast food restaurant.
We don’t believe you can make a silk purse out of a sows ear either and always use the best quality, fresh and where practical, local ingredients we can find from fresh dayboat caught, inshore fish from Cornwall and superb dry aged Aberdeen Angus beef from the Quantocks right down to Hobbs House Bakery bread from TV’s ‘Fabulous Baker Brothers’ and Clarence Court’s lovely free range Burford Brown eggs. We think this is reflected in the quality and taste of the food we offer whether it be for a tasty light lunch, an evening supper or our proper and much acclaimed traditional English Sunday Roast lunch.
Check our sample board menus below for examples of our food offering although we do change things around on a fairly frequent basis generally based on what we can get hold of that’s good and what side of the bed Chef (Dad!) gets out of in the morning!
We don’t buy rubbish or use cheap alternatives, we just prepare our food with the best quality ingredients that we can find. It follows our way of thinking, if you are going to spend your money on something, it may as well be something decent.
There will usually be a ‘Dish Of the Day’ or two, cooked freshly that day using what takes our fancy and is in the market place and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
Our ‘Fresh Fish’ again, will be exactly that, freshly delivered from our award winning supplier of dayboat caught south coast fish and again, when it’s gone, it’s gone.
For our younger guests we have a children’s menu available with, of course, good old favourites but we are also happy to offer smaller portions off our main menu where it is possible to do so.
WHITE HORSE INN
ALLERGEN INFORMATION
Well folks, it would appear that those good ol’ boys and girls in Brussels, wise old sages that they are, have been spending our money wisely beavering away on our behalf, because we’re all, obviously, really rather dull and have come up with, for our greater benefit, the All New....
European Commissions Allergen Regulations 2014
a ‘fun read’ if ever there was. The basis of it means that we now have a list of 14 Allergens or Irritants, 15 including the European Commission of course, that we now are duty bound to enlighten all our guests about. So, as we can’t afford the fine, here goes.....
Our Breads contain flour and therefore Gluten. Some of our homemade sauces contain flour and therefore Gluten although we can always produce a non-gluten sauce for most things, it might just not be the sauce you wanted! We also have a gravy for Sunday lunch which is Gluten free. NOTE: Sorry, Beer also contains Gluten, so that’s out too!
Our seafood dishes, funnily enough, contain, well, Seafood really which may, surprisingly to some of us dullards, include some super fresh Cornish Fish and our Prawn, Crayfish, Mussels, Clams, Crab and Lobster dishes, should we have any on today, will most certainly contain fabulous Crustaceans and or Molluscs. Sorry, not much we can do about that!
Our egg dishes stand more than a good chance of having some lovely fresh, organic Salmonella tested free range Eggs in them and may even have some Somerset Butter, Milk or Cream which will therefore contain Lactose and Dairy and as I’ve never made a sauce yet without a good half a pound of butter in it, all our sauces contain Dairy and therefore a good chance of low levels of Lactose as with all our dishes that feature Cheese.
All of our sauces and gravies will have some form of reduced alcohol in them which probably means some Sulphites as well and will also contain Celery in the vegetable mirepoix as will the Cheeseboard & Ploughmans!
Our Wines and Beers will almost certainly all contain Sulphites in some form otherwise both would go off pretty damned quickly and your favourite tipple would, therefore, probably cost five times as much! We generally don’t buy processed or frozen product so Sulphites as a food preservative in all its forms is generally thin on the ground here.
Tree Nuts, Peanuts or any other type of culinary nut for that matter (including Chef!), along with Mustard, if used, are generally described in the individual dish details, and we don’t use Soya, however, we are not Bio-Chemists or Nutritional Scientists and we do not run a sterile Chemical Laboratory or Research Facility and as such, we cannot guarantee that there would never be any chance of nut products getting into anything.
In fact, we cannot guarantee, given the vagueries of supply chains and the general incompetence of the British food industry at times, that any product doesn’t contain a trace of something or other that will not be sitting on a ‘naughty’ list, now, in the past or in the future.
We do try to include as much information on the board menus as possible but, in short, if you are in any doubt, ASK.
If you are not happy with the response, although we will always do our best, then unfortunately, probably best not to eat here.
We are quite obviously NOT in the business of poisoning our guests. We do appreciate that it can be very difficult if you have food problems and we have always tried, wherever possible, to help, give information and accommodate but sometimes it just is not possible. If you are going to keel over at the slightest whiff of something, then, again unfortunately, we are not an Hospital and you may consider eating elsewhere.
You are responsible for your well-being, if in doubt, don’t eat it!
As for Lupins, number 14 on the list incidentally, the only thing I know about Lupins is that they were once the subject of a very funny Monty Python sketch.. Don’t suppose that helps much!