Menus, events and food stories from a village pub
More tables at The Bull are arriving without a drinks order that involves alcohol — and that changes everything from how a menu is written to when the coffee lands. A food-led look at why the non-drinker has become the most useful critic in the room.
There is a seat at The Bull that never needs booking, never rushes you and quietly puts you in the middle of everything. A defence of the bar stool — and a few practical notes on when to choose it.
Mid-November, and the festive diary at The Bull is filling fast. A practical, slightly battle-scarred guide for whoever got volunteered to organise the office Christmas meal — on sittings, deposits, pre-orders and getting twenty plates to the table while they're still hot.
By four o'clock in November, Wargrave is already switching on its lights — and The Bull is filling its early tables. This is a look at the quiet winter supper shift: who books it, what lands on the plates, and why eating before dark suits a village pub rather well.
There is a particular kind of menu language that makes a diner feel underdressed. At The Bull, we have spent this year taking five of those words off the board — and replacing them with descriptions that tell you what is actually on the plate. Here is what went, what stayed, and why plain speaking suits a village pub better than a thesaurus.
Soup is rarely the dish a pub shouts about, but at The Bull it is often the one telling the truest story. From a wet Wargrave morning to yesterday's loaf and a glut of parsnips, the daily pot is a quiet record of what the kitchen has, what the village needs and what honesty looks like in a bowl.
Some of the best things on a winter pub menu will never win a beauty contest on a phone screen. At The Bull in Wargrave, the slow braises, suet puddings and proper gravy are a reminder that good cooking is judged with a fork, not a camera.
At The Bull in Wargrave, the most revealing part of the menu is not the headline dish but the row of jars behind the pass. We followed one batch of house piccalilli from a late-season glut to a small ramekin at the edge of the plate, and asked whether a condiment can say more about a kitchen than a main course ever will.
A pub pudding has a different job from a restaurant dessert. It has to land after a roast, a pint or a wet walk along the towpath — and it has to do so without demanding a second sitting, a sommelier or a pair of tweezers. At The Bull, that means sticky toffee, possets, cheese and the fruit people actually order.
A £16 main at a village pub can look like a simple sum: ingredients plus a bit of profit. In reality, it is a stack of small, stubborn costs — supplier runs, kitchen hours, oil, energy and the wastage bin. Here is a plain-English look at how a plate gets its price at The Bull, and how to read a menu more sharply without losing the pleasure of ordering.
Three regulars, three festive sandwiches and one scoring sheet built to separate good bread from beautiful nonsense. Here is what survived the December 2026 bar menu test at The Bull in Wargrave.
When the Thames rises, a riverside pub's job is not to pretend the weather isn't happening. It is to open early, keep a big pot on, and make the doorway easy for wet boots and wet dogs. A practical look at how The Bull in Wargrave feeds the village through a flood week — and what other kitchens can borrow for a wet November weekend.
The fortnight after Bonfire Night is not the pub calendar's glamour slot. But at The Bull in Wargrave, it is where game arrives, root vegetables take over and the specials board starts to loosen its collar — and where locals can eat some of the year's most interesting cooking without a Christmas menu in sight.
A working guide to the best dog-friendly circuits around Wargrave — riverbank mud, beech hangers and station lanes — all of which happen to end within sniffing distance of a bowl of water, a warm fire and a plate of chips. Route notes, pub etiquette and what to order when your dog has opinions.
Eating alone in a village pub on a Tuesday is not a sad compromise — it is one of the last genuinely civilised things left to do with an hour and a half. An argument for the table for one, plus a short guide to ordering, drinking and not apologising for any of it.
On 22 November 2026, The Bull will fill its kitchen with steam, spice and dried fruit for Stir-Up Sunday. It is a small act of patience in a village that knows a thing or two about waiting for a proper pint to settle.
A proper pub snack is not a starter in disguise. It is the salty handshake that buys you time before the main event. Here is our entirely reasonable, mildly argumentative ranking of nine bar snacks judged on salt, crunch, shareability and how well they survive a second pint.
Christmas lunch in a village pub looks effortless from the other side of the table. It isn't. We spent the whole of Christmas Day 2026 in the kitchen and on the floor at The Bull, from the first tray of parsnips to the last glass going through the washer.
The best ingredient list in Berkshire is not written in our kitchen — it is scattered across farm gates, orchard rows and a yard off the A4 within ten miles of the village. Here are eight producers we keep coming back to, and the plates they end up on.
Sunday lunch is the test a village pub never quite stops sitting. Here is what a year of gravy jugs, crackling, Yorkshire puddings and blunt regulars' notes has taught The Bull about getting the roast right.