Queens Head, Gilesgate Durham Sunday Lunch Review:

Recently I decided to go for Sunday Lunch at a place not too far from where I live called the Queens Head. I pre-booked my Table as I had heard the restaurant does get busy since being took over, located in a very accessible location not far from the City Centre, it has a small carpark to the side of the pub and some more parking further up the little side road. The pub does alternate it’s menu’s so you can see the one I had located on the right of this paragraph, as you see can the prices are very reasonable and certainly matching most other local eateries around.

First Impressions one of the most important things to me is first impressions I tend to either feel comfortable while dining or slightly uneasey dependant on how we are greeted. I was running late to my 1pm table booking and phoned the pub and was told not to worry and they’ll see us when we get there which was polite of them. Upon entering the pub two staff members were at the bar, and we were told where our seats where and greeted nicely. We went over to our table and there was a baby seat awaiting our arrival for little Holly as Lucy was away that day, having the baby seat already at the table was an extremely thoughtful idea by the staff. The spacing between tables was great they’ve not tried to over capacitate the restaurant and have designed it so you have plenty of room perfect considering we brought the pushchair as Holly was asleep.

We were asked if we wanted drinks, I opted for a pint of Coke and Nicky Diet Coke, one thing I do wish was at the table there should of been a drinks menu, there was a wine menu but none for soft drinks, beers etc. We ordered our meal, for starters we had soup of the day which was Roasted Tomato and Basil served with crusty bread, for mains I went for the Roast top side of Beef served pink and for dessert the mouth-watering Chocolate Brownie Sundae. Nicky went for the same starter however, for the main she opted for Pan Seared Breast of Chicken served with sausage meat stuffing and for dessert Belgium waffles and Ice Cream.

We waited a short while till our soup arrived, the dish was very well presented which sometimes I feel pubs tend to lack presentation of their food. The soup itself was okay not brilliant sadly I did not like the texture of the soup at all but the flavour was lovely especially with the bread. The one thing I did look for was some pepper to add to my soup however condiments were not at the table something I thought was a little bit of a let-down.

Our main courses, they came out and again the presentation was good you can tell the Chef takes pride in his/her dishes. The thing I loved about the main course is that your veg came on a separate dish to the meat, mash, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. With them doing this it does make the meal look a lot better again going back to presentation as sometimes when it’s all on one plate it can look packed and over the top. My meat was pink like I asked and tasted splendid, the mash was lovely and creamy and roast potatoes had a nice crunchy shell and a fluffy inside. Overall I must admit the main was a complete winner and Nicky really enjoyed hers too.

Dessert time and now we all know Desserts are the most important meal of the day (ignore those who say breakfast, they’re totally wrong). I opted for the mouth-watering Chocolate Brownie Sundae and Nicky went for the Belgium waffles. My thoughts on the Brownie Sundae was it looked good and was really tasty, I only had one issue and that was some of the brownies were a little hard but apart from that it was delicious. Nicky said hers was lovely but she much rather a little more ice cream which would have made it perfect for her.

Overall my experience at the Queens Head, Gilesgate was good, below are my ratings of each area.

Food Quality – 7/10 let down by the soup sadly could have made it 10/10.

Food presentations – 10/10 the presentation was fantastic and could not fault it.

Customer Service – 9/10 A little improvement to some staff would have made it a 10/10 however overall I was extremely happy with the service I received.

Locations and Accessibility – 10/10 Easy accessible by public transport, car and even on foot. Small carpark but does the job.

Price – 10/10 Well priced and affordable food just what you would expect from the type of establishment.

So overall I did enjoy my experience and would certainly recommend to visitor or even locals to go try it out.