Jones Wood Foundry is a British pub with an emphasis on elevated gastronomy. In the UK, you’ll find two different types of pubs: drinking pubs and pubs that seek to be a dining destination. The former, drinking pubs, pay little attention to the food they offer and have all the standard fare (essentially anything fried or fattening), all of which tends to be mediocre and a waste of a meal. The other, so called gastro-pubs, aim to serve thoughtfully prepared food using good quality, fresh ingredients, with an emphasis on technique, moderation, and sophistication. Jones Wood Foundry seeks to be the latter.
The owner and chef, Jason Hicks, is British and grew up in the English countryside, often gardening with his grandfather. Hicks credits this experience for cultivating his appreciation for fresh, high-quality ingredients. The menu at Jones Wood Foundry is entirely British, offering dishes like Bangers & Mash, Bubble & Squeak, Mushy Peas, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Indian Vindaloo, and Banoffee Pie. These are dishes that most Americans have never even heard of, let alone consumed, but they can all be found here. Though I am not a British food enthusiast (and to be honest have never heard of someone being one who wasn’t himself British), there are a couple of British foods I loved in England and was excited to finally try again. When I heard of a place with Crumpets, Welsh Rarebit, and Yorkshire Pudding, I had to give it a go.
We were greeted by a host with a charming South African accent, who sat us down in a dark, wooden, spacious room. Our server was a nice, quiet Irish guy. Immediately I asked about their Crumpets, as these are what I’d been most looking forward to. Given that this was a gastro-pub, I assumed they would be fresh made, warm, soft, delicious crumpets and was hoping the server would give me affirmation of that. He confidently said to avoid the crumpets. I was surprised and totally disappointed, but very pleased with his frankness. He said for someone who knows what real crumpets are (we mentioned we’d lived in London), theirs would disappoint and that they aren’t even fresh baked. He wasn’t clear on whether they were ever fresh baked in the past, but they certainly weren’t now. Ugh, total disappointment! We had to pass since a packaged crumpet is available anywhere and entirely defeats the purpose of this place.
So with that, and after soliciting more opinions from the server, we decided on Welsh Rarebit and Yorkshire Pudding (served with a Stilton dip) and their veggie burger because I just happened to be in a veggie burger mood and this one seemed good quality. I requested the veggie burger on toast instead of a classic burger bun because I have been loving that combo recently. I find that sliced bread is much heartier and flavorful than soft burger buns, which are quite bland and not exciting. And with sliced bread, you can choose whatever you want – rye, sourdough, multi-grain, etc. There are so many forms of sliced bread and very few forms of burger buns. Anyway, I asked what types of sliced breads they had and he said they only had sourdough. Now if you know me, you know I love nearly any and every type of bread that exists. White, wheat, multi-grain, seeded, buttermilk, biscuit, nutty, soft, hard, etc. But I really dislike sourdough and it’s unfortunate for me that sourdough is super fashionable these days. Nonetheless, my choice was between sourdough toast or a burger bun, so I accepted the sourdough toast.
The food arrived and the Yorkshire Pudding was the size of my head whereas the Welsh Rarebit was clearly made to be a toddler’s appetizer. We pointed out the discrepancy in size and the server agreed that the Welsh Rarebit was unusually small and actually brought us a second one, free of charge. Thank goodness because the Welsh Rarebit was the only thing that was truly delicious! It was made with Tickler cheddar, Guinness, and a mix of stone ground and English mustards. Really flavorful in that weird, musty, pungent cheese-beer sauce way. It’s an acquired taste, for sure, but once you’ve acquired it, it’s fantastic.
The Yorkshire Pudding, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. It’s essentially England’s version of a popover, so it balloons up when baked and forms a crunchy exterior and a soft interior. This Yorkshire Pudding did not have a crunchy exterior – it had a burnt exterior. It was dry, ultra-flaky, and completely overdone to the point where even the inside didn’t retain any moisture. We ate none of it after one initial bite.
The veggie burger was somewhere in between. It was edible, but not spectacular. And that sourdough toast I was dreading wasn’t sourdough at all! Though, of course, I was pleasantly surprised, a server should really know what type of bread the restaurant is actually serving. It’s a pretty standard question and honestly, it’s not like the restaurant is fresh baking this bread. It’s sliced bread – you can even just look on the package. On the positive side, the veggie burger was clearly fresh-made and you could even see chunks of whole black beans. It was well spiced with cumin, which gave it a meaty flavor despite the lack of meat. And it was served with triple cooked fries, which were sadly so so bland. Honestly, messing up fries is difficult to do and I have to make a comment that I rarely ever make in life: they were under-salted.
All in all, we had some food, the server was nice and understanding, but it was far from the experience we’d hoped it would be. I wouldn’t really recommend it. Though it’s true we didn’t try some of the other classic dishes like Shepherd’s Pie or the Scotch Egg, there’s just no reason to believe those dishes would’ve been any better. I guess if you’re have an unshakable craving for British food, this place will do the trick. But otherwise, I’d pass.
