Restaurant review: The Potting Shed, Beverley

After a disappointing experience on his third attempt to dine out in the Potting Shed, Dave Lee says '˜please Beverley, can I have my town back'.
Gnomes Revenge burger was taste free.Gnomes Revenge burger was taste free.
Gnomes Revenge burger was taste free.

And so the culinary shape of Beverley shifts again. The historic town used to be home to a few great pubs and a handful of independent restaurants. The nearest it got to the tyranny of chains was a PizzaExpress. And that was how most of us liked it. Beverley has its own tradition and it needed nothing more than leaving alone to get on with things.

Then, half a decade ago, things started changing. First came a chain supermarket, bang in the middle of the town. Then came the chain pubs and restaurants, buying up the historic buildings and nailing their corporate branding to the front. Then came the shopping arcade, the one that shall go unnamed. Built on prime land, it is as awful as everyone said it would be. Now the best view of the west side of Beverley Minster is obscured by a pound shop. Well, done Beverley Town Council.

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The final thing the town needed to show it had given up trying was for someone to buy a big pub, strip it back to bare brick, hammer some rough boards to the walls and start serving mad burgers, pulled pork, badly-made cocktails and “slaw”.

The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.
The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.

Welcome to the Potting Shed. Beverley division.

There is already a branch of the Potting Shed in Bingley, but their takeover of the old Hodgsons pub on Flemingate is apparently the first in a series of new openings. I had no fondness for Hodgsons, but what has arrived instead is actively unattractive; the decor is gaudy and cliched, the main room is dark and much of the seating is uncomfortable. There is no table service, you can’t run a tab, the staff are woefully undertrained and (the three times I visited, anyway) much of the menu is unavailable. There are too many tables for the kitchen to practically serve, the waiting times are outrageously bad and getting a receipt is either a massive chore or simply impossible. On a positive note, though, the smell from the wood-fired oven is very pleasant. If you go when they haven’t run out of pizza dough.

And is the food any good? Well, no. Not really. I’ve only sampled a small portion of the menu because there was never more than 50 per cent of it on. I kept going back – three days running – to make sure I wasn’t being unfair on a recently-opened venture but every time I found that what I wanted wasn’t available. Therefore, I can’t tell you if pulled pork nachos or crispy crabcakes or spicy meatballs or chicken, avocado and quinoa mole salad are any good. I haven’t had opportunity to try them. I can tell you that the pepperoni and mozzarella garlic doughballs are claggy and sickly-sweet and so heavy that you feel gullet-full after eating only two. The sauce they come served with claims to be aioli but is the weirdest, pale yellow nonsense I’ve ever suffered.

I truly wish I could tell you that the Yorkshire burger was something all of the county could look to with pride, it being a burger with bacon and Yorkshire cheese and served – you’ve guessed it – in a Yorkshire pudding. But it was unavailable for all of my visits, for different reasons each time. If it was anything like the ‘Gnome’s Revenge’ burger (double patty, bacon, cheese, pulled pork, BBQ sauce), I could tell you that it is amazingly taste-free considering it contains so much dead animal flesh. Seasoning is clearly not one of the chef’s special skills.

The Spanish themed pizza was undercooked.The Spanish themed pizza was undercooked.
The Spanish themed pizza was undercooked.
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The pizza (I had a Spanish-themed one with chorizo and other stuff) is also poor. Despite the pride-of-place, wood-fired pizza oven, it arrived very undercooked.

Despite the staff trying their best, service is appalling. A couple next to me were told (at least 20 minutes after ordering) that their food wouldn’t arrive for over an hour. So that’s 80 minutes in total. When they complained they were offered only a refund. No apology.

After noticing that even more tables and chairs were being installed in the garden, I was introduced to the owner, Andy. Honesty I thought was the best policy and I raised my concerns about the amount of tables appearing when they seemed overrun already. I was met with a flurry of stats on weekly turnover and intended daily grosses.

I want to go easy on the Potting Shed. This is only their second venture and they have at least turned a moribund pub into a going concern, but they are not serving good grub and they don’t appear too concerned about people leaving satisfied.

The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.
The Potting Shed has moved into what was Hodgsons.
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It’s emblematic of the malaise overtaking Beverley. People need to realise that what the town needs is more of the excellent, individual, independent places it has always boasted and less of the bloated nonsense so prevalent in towns of lesser stature. You can do so much better, Beverley, don’t accept second best.

The Potting Shed, Flemingate, Beverley HU17 0NU. Open daily: 12pm-12am. Tel: 08455 000999, pottingshedbar.com