Three Horse Shoes
Three Horse Shoes
High Street
Madingley
Cambridgeshire
England
Tel: +44 (0)1954 210221
Web: www.huntsbridge.com (www.huntsbridge.com/)
Serves lunch and dinner (Monday to Sunday) lunch; bookings accepted; children welcome; garden.
The quietly spoken Richard Stokes, the chef and co-owner of the Three Horse Shoes, has worked at the River Café and numerous restaurants in San Francisco. But he likes cooking in this gracious thatched English pub better than anywhere. ‘I’m not hide-bound by an unchanging à la carte menu. If a local shooter brings me 20 mallards I can serve them until they run out. I can do a slow roast every day if I want to. I can serve puddings as simple as ripe figs with mascarpone and a honey that I discovered in Tuscany. I can tinker around with ideas,’ he says.
The Three Horseshoe’s daily-changing menus are full of modern Asian and Italian touches that Richard picked up in San Francisco. You might find green papaya and crab salad with chilli, lime and soy, or a pizzetta with ricotta, pumpkin and rosemary. It is gloriously sunny food, modish without being overwrought.
In the kitchen, Richard has demi-johns full of raspberries in Campari or vodka, so he can make boozy sorbets in June before the fruit comes into season, and there are jars of fig, grape and apple chutney. Side dishes, such as fontina potato cake and braised leeks with ham and cream, are divine, and there’s always something interesting behind the bar, such as home-made lemonade or prosecco with freshly-squeezed blood orange juice. Here is a chef who goes the extra mile.
