The Bailiwick | Englefield Green (UK)

Distinctive versions of traditional English fayre in sophisticated yet familiar dishes with attractive flourishes and complementary flavours!

Tucked away at the gates of Windsor Great Park since 1877, we find The Bailiwick in Englefield Green, Egham. A quintessential British dining pub and snug bar in a former Victorian shop with ceiling of vintage mirrors serving cask ales. The Bailiwick reopened in Februari 2021 under the new reigns of Steven and Ami Ellis.

We know the Ellis’s from The Oxford Blue in Old Windsor, which they opened in 2015 and unfortunately had to sell in 2020 due to the economic effects of Covid. Since May 2021 it’s been renamed as The Loch & The Tyne by Adam Handling, which we visited only last week.
Together with business partner and friend Ratnesh Bagdai, the husband and wife chef team, with Head Chef Steven and Head Pastry Chef Ami, will write their new chapter at The Bailiwick.

Chef Patron Steven Ellis grew up in the Middle East, but went to catering college in the UK. In 2010 he worked at Andrew Pern’s Michelin-starred Star Inn at Harome (North Yorkshire), where he met his wife Ami. And later Steven was Sous Chef at Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant, under the tutelage of Clare Smyth MBE, working his way to Senior Sous.
Co-Chef Patron Ami Ellis is originally from South Shields. She developed her skills and passion for pastry in pubs and restaurants across the country. From Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and The Ledbury in London to The Star Inn in Harome.

The Bailiwick opens Thursday to Saturday for lunch and dinner and on Sunday for lunch only. Due to staff shortages they are closed on Wednesdays at the moment. The à la carte menu offers 2 courses at ￡40 and 3 courses at ￡50. 6 Snacks (at ￡3.50 – ￡6.50) and 7 Sides (at ￡4 -￡7). There is a separate Sunday Roast menu and a Bar menu.

We visited The Bailiwick on a Friday end of November last year and enjoyed a 3 course dinner.

As we were in the middle of game season, they had some game bird specials as additional mains to the à la carte menu. We chose the mallard and another main from the à la carte.

Couldn’t resist ordering these when I saw them on the menu. Windsor Great Park venison bonbons, with wholegrain mustard mayonnaise . A familiar treat, as they were also on the menu at The Oxford Blue. I liked them then as I did this time. Packed with, well seasoned, venison meat. Just the right size and simply scrumptious. 

The bread and butter haven’t changed either since last time. Homemade cider bread, warm and presented in a paper bag with silky cultured butter.

Pig’s trotter ballotin, with picked apple carpaccio, braun fritter, crispy pig’s ear and sauce gribiche. The trotter cooked beautifully with tender skin. Fresh apple to lift the dish, especially great with the crab apple. A comforting braun fritter with fried quails egg on top, with a lovely egg and mustard sauce gribiche. and the pig’s ear crackling to finish it off. Marvellous starter!

Shellfish gratin as the second starter. Generous chunks of lobster and scallop buried under a rich and creamy thermidor sauce. Lacks a bit of seasoning and needs some acidity to lift the heavy sauce up. A shame, as otherwise a great dish.

Chargrilled haunch of red deer, right from their doorstep at Windsor Great Park. Beautifully pink with first-rate texture and taste and wonderfully paired with some blood orange and elderberry puree. Braised faggot with an ace balance of earthy flavours. Pea fricassee and cured haunch pastrami, like the perfect finger sandwich. Unfortunately the potato puree was cold (probably because the plates were quite cold) and the radicchio was quite bitter. But all was mended by a sublime and unctuous sauce!

Well seasoned, and cooked spot on, mallard with foraged wild mushrooms. Cavolo nero and elderberry puree. The pastrami of confit leg, unfortunately lacked meat and was almost all potato and the brush stroke of puree was cold and not enough to really taste what is was. But that charcuterie sauce! Shiny and bursting with flavour.

Proper chunky chips as a side.

Chocolate Delice for dessert. Made with milk chocolate and cocoa nib. With vanilla salted caramel that made my teeth stick together. Nice fondant but really sweet and probably a chocolate lovers heaven, but a bit too heavy and dense for me. The delicious malt ice-cream was the best thing on the plate for me!

The other dessert, a superb mille-feuille. With caramelised apple terrine, custard and a real thousend-layer puff pastry. Clotted cream and apple sauce, which could have been a bit more. The apple sauce that is.

Another familiar treat from the Oxford Blue days. A sweet note from pastry chef Ami: Salted tempered chocolate with hazelnuts.

I really love the atmosphere of this place, enhanced with little details to remind you, that you are in the middle of game territory.

With front of house in the capable hands of Liz, who hails from South Africa, service runs smoothly. We had a trainee serving us, which was quite noticeable as she couldn’t explain the dishes and took away our breads without asking whether we wanted to keep it. But that’s forgiven, as we all need to learn. It does show though that training and managing trainees is key.

I feel the Ellis’s are were they belong, in this classic country pub on a tranquil spot on the edge of Windsor Great Park, overlooking the ancient deciduous woodland. With ingredients easily sourced locally and game literally on their doorstep. A great place where Steven presents his own distinctive versions of traditional English fayre in sophisticated yet familiar dishes with attractive flourishes and complementary flavours!