Swan Revived Hotel, Newport Pagnell

This entry relates to the more formal hotel bar as opposed to the adjacent and more pub-like Frog & Nightgown which shares some of it’s facilities including the loos and presumably a kitchen. It consists of two rooms, a lounge bar to the left and a restaurant to the right. The hotel reception desk is located between the two, whilst the bar counter is at the rear. The lounge bar certainly has something of a formal hotel drawing room feel with wood panelling covering two walls and a fire-place with some ornate carving incorporated in to it. This housed a wood burning stove with green tiling behind. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and there were a number of drawings of vintage cars on the wall, all of the Aston Martin variety reflecting the fact that the factory was just around the corner until a few years ago. The menu offered a decent enough selection of dishes, pitched somewhere between pub grub and the more upmarket hotel offerings. It was divided in to sections such as steaks, fish, burgers and pub classics. The latter included options such as pie of the day, scampi and chips and a chilli con carne, and these were mostly priced around the 10 - £12 mark. My Thai Green Chicken Curry was a generous portion and had tender strips of chicken, perhaps carved from a bird that had been roasted, rather than the rubbery cubes that you get in so many pubs. Although it had a bit of heat to it, it was lacking much in the way of flavour however. The solitary pump on the bar was offering Tribute, although the barmaid informed me that they also had Doom Bar which I suspect was from the adjoining pub. The only cider was Strongbow, unfortunately. This is a tricky one to mark – it’s perfectly fine for what it is, but it’s certainly not very pub like and it isn’t the sort of place that many people are likely to call in for a pint. The only other punters in the lounge on my visit were a small group having a committee meeting of some sort, and an older couple drinking a pot of tea.