The Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield is a luxury boutique hotel that really does earn those two words. It’s a crazy, lovely venue that assaults the sense with colour, texture and class. We had a champagne lunch in the English restaurant there recently which was a delightful experience.
The hotel has three restaurants, a Thai, Italian and English. Each is decorated in a style to suit each country and serves food to match.
The English restaurant is decorated in rich red, gold and black wallpaper, has mustard coloured leather banquettes, long, rich wood dining tables and sumptuous velvet seats. The ceiling is painted red too, which emphasises the old wooden beams that criss-cross the surface above.
We decided to have lunch with champagne, which is a selection of dishes and as much champagne as you can drink.
It began with fresh soup of the day and pork to start. The soup was asparagus and was delightfully fresh. It came with fresh bread and was the ideal way to begin a lunch. The potted Gloucestershire old spot pork came with piccalilli and toasted sour dough. The meat was light, perfectly prepared and worked extremely well with the sour dough.
“The Crazy Bear offers great food and as much champagne as you can handle.”
Main course was lemon sole and oyster risotto with a side of creamed lovers potato. The lemon sole fillets were pan roasted and came with triple cooked chips, minted peas and tartar sauce. The fish was fresh, succulent and was perfectly complemented by the peas and sauce. It was light and very satisfying.
The spinach, oyster and shiitake mushroom risotto was perfectly grounded with a range of real earthy tastes. It was cooked to perfection and left us feeling extremely satisfied.
Dessert was vanilla cheesecake and iced passion fruit parfait. The cheesecake was light, sweet and was accompanied by a gooseberry compote and a gooseberry and elderflower sorbet. The tartness of the gooseberry was tempered perfectly by the flowery elderflower and both went perfectly with the vanilla.
The passion fruit parfait came with coconut cake which gave a Caribbean flavour to this very English meal. It was rich, fruity and quite refreshing.
The experience, the food and the service at The Crazy Bear was excellent. As well as an eye-popping hotel, the restaurant offers great food and as much champagne as you can handle. We will definitely return!
The Bill: £39.50 per head
