Lunching at Young’s Pubs Newest Hotspot, The Naturalist *

Last week one of my favourites ladies, Hayley, came down from Litchfield to spend a few days with me in good old Essex! I took her to Romford for pizza, and showed her the very few sights around where I live, but I assure you her trip did get a lot better! Being the babe that I am, I decided to take her to review the newest additions to the Young’s Pub family in the shape of The Naturalist in Woodberry Down, just a few minutes walk from Manor House tube station.

We were greeted at the door and were offered to sit anywhere we wanted as with it being 2pm on a Wednesday we had a few good areas to pick from. We opted for the room with most windows as we love people watching as they go past, ok I lie, we like dog spotting.

The Drinks

As we perused over the menu we ordered an Aperol Spritz as normal for me and Hayley had a Naturalist Mojito complete with honey. We were both suitably chuffed with our drinks and proceeded to have a Porn Star Martini each before we left too!

The Food

When it came to the food, I did think about ordering the burger, as I always do, but shock horror, I decided to behave myself a little bit more this time around! I went for the Roasted half-chicken that is usually served with Suffolk chorizo but I had a chunky Cumberland sausage, root veg slaw with fries and a helping of sweetcorn purée. I’m not a chicken skin eater but Hayley did help with that as it was so crispy but the meat underneath was perfectly cooked and really juicy. And who knew that sweetcorn purée was just as good with your chips as ketchup!?

Hayley had the 28-day-aged hanger steak which they cooked to her order of well done, served with crispy onions, seaweed butter and rosemary fries. In all the meals I’ve shared with Hayley of the past few years, I’ve never seen her empty her plate so quickly so that’s a sure sign that she enjoyed that!

Despite being rather full, we obviously still ordered a dessert! We both chose the Chocolate tart, with locally sourced honeycomb, and Jude’s Ice Cream in Vanilla. Oh wow, this was so good. I actually wish I’d eaten less of my main to have more room for this as it was just so good. It wasn’t too rich, so all the flavours didn’t over power each other at all.

We had a really lovely chilled afternoon, so much so we spent almost three hours at The Naturalist just chatting, having great service and not being rushed away from our table as so many places do these days which really infuriates me. The decor was so homely and so on the blue colour scheme that is my total favourite, in fact, I actually took photos for when we move as a reference to the bits and bots that I liked around the venue!