The Cheese Barn at Matatoki

Rating: 2

We ate lunch here in March 2024.

Cheese and relish toasted sandwich
Pepper steak pie

The Cheese Barn is a quaint little cheese producer out of Thames, the kind of place where the cheesemaker stops at your table to have a yarn. While they had a good looking selection of cheeses, their cafe menu wasn’t very exciting. The toasted sandwich had been made with a squished down bun rather than bread which is always a bit unpleasant. That said, the relish was tasty as was the cheese (as you’d expect). We were pleased to find the steak in the pie was noticeably peppered, but displeased to find it contained frozen mixed veg (sad cubes of carrot, peas and lone kernels of corn). Why would anybody add this to a pie? It brings nothing in terms of flavour and boy does it make your pie look cheap. Especially if you’re describing the pie as gourmet, as was the case here, it’s pure lunacy to add frozen veg.