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The Swan, Milton Keynes

2 Wavendon Road
Salford
Postal town: Milton Keynes
MK17 8BD

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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve C left this review about The Swan

I visited the Swan early on Friday evening with the missus looking for some grub and a pint. We decided to leave the food after a quick glance at the menu revealed that the cheapest main option was £13 for bangers and mash.

Beyond the entrance of the Swan is a square island bar that supports two hand pumps that were drawing Sharp’s Doom Bar and Cornish Coaster. The keg options were Sharp’s Cornish Pilsner, Peroni, Guinness and Aspalls Cider. There is some seating around the bar, but the vast majority is in the rear dining area where a group of waiters and waitresses were eagerly awaiting the dinner rush. There are no televisions in here, but there was some low background music from the likes of Dire Straits. Like many of the pubs in this area the Swan has gone down the dining route. In my opinion it has lost the character that one would associate with a public house. I imagine that the food is great, but I think I would give this place a miss when next in the area and I think that the listed upcoming events are quite telling because they are all food based i.e. meet the chef evenings etc.

Note: If approaching from the south along Wavendon Road the entrance to the large stone strewn car park is on the bend just before the pub. If you reach the pub you have missed the car park. Thankfully one of the three spaces outside the front of the pub was available during our visit so we didn’t have to find somewhere to do a U turn.

On 2nd June 2015 - rating: 6
[User has posted 5179 recommendations about 5148 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Blackthorn _ left this review about The Swan

A good sized village pub that looks to have had a recent makeover, and is now very firmly in the “gastro” category, even to the extent that a blackboard at the rear or the pub name checks the chef and gives a short résumé of his career. Judging by the Range Rovers, BMW’s and other prestige vehicles in the large car park, it’s does not appear to be at the budget end of the gastro scale either.

It’s essentially a square pub with a central bar area dividing it in to two halves, although you can walk all the way round. The larger area to the left is very much the dining room with all tables laid up for food and a view in to the kitchen via an etched glass window, but to be fair to them the bar on the right does look to be more suited to drinkers with brown leather arm chairs. There was a fire-place at each end, although at least one of these was clearly decorative rather than functional with just a pile of logs in an otherwise empty grate. The other one had a wood burning stove and may perhaps be used in the colder weather. Décor wise it’s the usual gastro-pub shade of brown with wooden strip flooring either side and some colourful tiles in the middle giving it something of a Mediterranean feel. There is also a pleasant garden at the front of the pub with plenty of seating, and this was full to capacity on a recent warm summer’s evening.

The menu offered a reasonable selection of dishes and was divided in to a few sections such as mains, chargrills, salads and rice and there was also a specials board with a few additional choices. My earlier assumptions about their pricing structure was proved correct with the cheapest main course (ham, egg & chips) coming in at £12.50 and the majority being somewhere around the £15 mark. If you were feeling extravagant, you could spend £29 on a steak, plus a further £3.50 on top if you wanted chips with it. My Salmon Fishcakes with a Niçoise Salad and Basil Mayo was a decently cooked dish with plenty of salmon, and was one of the cheaper options at £13.50. If I was being critical I would say that it could have done with more flavour, but that’s probably personal preference more than anything else.

Beers on tap were slightly uninspiring with just Greene King IPA and Doom Bar. The solitary cider was Aspall’s Suffolk. Be aware that the beer supply can be somewhat erratic – I have been in previously when both had run out.

On 17th July 2013 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1937 recommendations about 1850 pubs]