The Elephant at The Market Newbury

I’m not sure how many of you lovely readers of my blog are in or around Newbury but I think I speak for everyone when I say that (finally) it seems as if Newbury’s culinary scene is improving. We had a few nice restaurants in the town centre, (The Square and Petit Square spring to mind but both now closed), the family run Italian (Valle D’Oro) and many country pubs but we went through pretty slim pickings in Newbury town centre for some time.

It seems now however that times are a changing and we have new places in Newbury in which to dine (chain restaurants I’m not looking at you). Very exciting. We have Brebis for French cuisine, The Newbury is in the Michelin guide, The Lock Stock and Barrel has had a facelift and we have the newly opened Elephant at The Market.

I went to The Elephant on its opening night to see what it’s all about and I can tell you now I will definitely be going back. Inside it’s what you would describe as quirky I guess and although a nice bit of décor is good I’m more interested in the food and drink. They have a good sounding cocktail menu, unfortunately I didn’t get to sample any of them and the food menu has many, many things I would like to try.

There are a wide range of drinks on the menu (other than cocktails) and some interesting soft drinks above and beyond the standard fruit juices and fizzy drinks you would normally find. I was pleased to see there was a good range of beer, including local craft beer too.

There was food circulating on the opening night so I got to try: pizza, mini burger and fish with mushy peas. The pizza was really nice, they have a pizza oven on site and the tomato sauce (the most difficult bit to get right in my opinion) was excellent. The mini burgers came topped with slow cooked pulled beef rib and bacon and onion jam; one of the nicest I’ve had in a long while and the rapeseed based tartare sauce and mint mushy peas with the crispy fish was lovely.

I think The Elephant is a very welcome addition to the Newbury food scene and I am really looking forward to going back and trying some of the real sized meals! Currently there is a bit of scaffolding on the outside of the pub but trust me, it’s definitely open!

This meal was paid for by The Elephant. All opinions expressed and words are my own.