I fervently maintain that the quality of an establishment’s food can be determined by the number of cars in the carpark; the more the cars the better the food as people are keen to visit. The Marquis of Granby in Wellingore has no carpark so nothing to go on but we ploughed on nevertheless.
We were welcomed with a cheery smile by the pleasant landlady with a shock of purple/blue spiky hair. We were shown to our table in the restaurant area, in fact we were offered any table as there was no-one else there. This is a reflection perhaps of the times we live in when a country pub is empty at lunchtime on a sunny Friday afternoon in early Summer.
The restaurant was clean and tidy with smart, wooden tables and comfortable chairs with houndstooth check upholstery. S Club 7 was playing through the speaker above the bar quickly followed by Madonna but this disappeared into the background with all the hubbub at the bar (what hubbub, the place was empty!)
The menu was very comprehensive with the usual choice of ciabattas, sandwiches and jacket potatoes. There was a specials board but I opted for the Spinach Cannelloni in a creamy tomato sauce. Unusually this came with a choice of mashed potato or chips together with peas and carrots. So, apart from the veg it was heavy on the carbs. I chose the mashed potato. The dish would though benefit from a small salad of mixed leaves with perhaps a vinaigrette or French dressing instead of the mash, chips and veg.
Mrs Wanderer, by her own admission, was not adventurous and went for the Prawns with Marie-Rose sauce jacket.
The food arrived about 15 minutes later so was presumably cooked to order. Mrs Wanderer’s jacket came with a surprising amount of prawns, a homemade coleslaw with cheese and a light salad which I think consisted of a shed-load of lettuce, some tomato, cucumber, peppers and onion.
It was difficult to see how many cannelloni there were in the sauce but I’m guessing there were three. To be fair the pasta and the sauce were very tasty but the meal was let down by the dry, unseasoned (for my palette) mashed potato. The carrot batons were quite thick but, with the exception of the sauce, the meal was dry.
On the plus side though both dishes were piping hot and the quantity left neither of us feeling hungry at the end.
Wellingore appears to be a quaint little village offset to the side of the A607 Grantham road but it is obviously a troubled place. The pub feels it necessary to have a poster in the gent’s toilet stating that the use or distribution of drugs is forbidden on the premises and anyone found to be doing so will be kicked out and barred! I’m not sure I would want to wander the streets after dark.
All-in-all this is a traditional country pub and it serves traditional, simple, no frills meals. Not to everyone’s taste perhaps.
At a push, if we were in the area, we would return but I wouldn’t make it a destination.
The Willoughton Wanderer 
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