The Inn Keeper of Johnsonville

Rating: 1

We ate dinner here in May 2023.

Beef & Guinness pie with salad
Haloumi butty with salad and chips

We’ve been in the game for a while now, and have a hot tip to share, for all budding restaurant owners. It’s very helpful for customers to know that some things are unavailable before ordering. It’s less helpful to find out after ordering. The Inn Keeper actually knew this, and called out to his wife in the kitchen to find out if they were out of anything before we ordered. Points. For some reason, his wife neglected to include haloumi in the list, and that she would have to nip over the street to the supermarket to grab some. Points off.

While they were very endearing, the duo running the joint seemed a little out of their depth. Their menu online is a lot more sophisticated, and they have a note up to say that they aren’t serving breakfast due to staffing. We wonder if they have lost their cook, and if their current setup is just temporary. Unfortunately for them we don’t review what could have been, we just review what is. And what is, wasn’t very good.

Even once the wife was back from the shops, it took a very long time for our fairly basic meals to come out of the kitchen, and neither was very good. The pie was alright in the flavour department, and it was homemade, but it wasn’t nearly saucy enough. We really wanted to dip a chip or two into the gravy, but there just wasn’t gravy to be had. The chips were overwhelmingly salty, truly encrusted in salt crystals they were. The haloumi butty that came with them was completely bereft of butter, and at that point one has to ask if it’s even a butty at all. The haloumi inside was okay, if a little cold, and we appreciated that they had drizzled over some lemon juice. But where was the freaking butter? Sourdough is a bold choice for butty bread, and it probably would have been fine if the filling had been a bit moister, or if the bread had been slightly toasted. Unfortunately this was just a cold, dry, mess. The basic side salads with an overlarge wheel of tomato on top were somehow the best thing on the table, probably thanks to the nice dressing that came in a little jug on the side. More places should serve dressing on the side.