Haven’t been to The Duke for some time but was meeting friends for dinner and decided to go as having eaten here before I knew we would be well catered for. And we were! Two couples so 2 different sharing plates to start, the mezze...and the charcuterie boards. My only criticism of the charcuterie one was it literally had 2 pieces of each meat selection so it was only 1 each, seemed a bit stingy. But that was followed by 2 steaks, 1 fish and chips and 1 sausage and mash, all of which were very tasty, hot and filling.
However, I was disappointed to see that the restaurant area is also now being used as the pub area so as we were still eating our food, groups of people were coming in and sitting at tables previously occupied by earlier diners. The restaurant is quite echoey due to the design but as more non diners arrived it got louder and louder and made conversation amongst us difficult. I’m sure this is a new facility as tables used to be left empty and were even laid up for the next days service. The staff were fairly nondescript, not particularly engaging but not rude, more uninterested. A shame as this used to be a nice place to have a pre dinner G&T on one side before walking to your table for dinner on the other. Doubt we’ll return anytime soon.More