At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be anything outstanding about The Merry Harriers, in the bijoux Surrey hamlet of Hambledon near Godalming.
It looks like any other roadside inn carved out in the English countryside. But peer closer and you’ll discover it’s everything but run-of-the-mill.
As you park your car opposite, you’ll notice the shepherd hut accommodation. When you stroll in, you’re greeted by a hand carved bar, tables and chairs, and by fresh baked goods (cinnamon buns, sausage rolls and the like) gleaming alongside pumps of local ale and craft beer. Staff are refreshingly cheery, warm and happy.
It just FEELS like somewhere you really do want to hunker down in, rain, snow or shine.
The Merry Harriers (named 18 on Estrella Damm’s most recent listing of the UK’s top 50 gastropubs, and third in the Good Food Guide’s 100 best pubs) has been revitalised by friends Sam Fiddian Green and Alex Winch – the folk behind nearby Hilltop Kitchen.
British, local and homegrown are the mantras of their ethos, and with a number of family members involved in the fruition of the business, it’s a deeply personal endeavour.
The kitchen is overseen by Sam, who butchers the meat from his family farm, Wintershall Valley, in-house. Lots of fresh produce comes via his sister at Goldie’s Greens. His cousin at Hutley & Humm designed the new garden rooms. Local farms, producers, distilleries and breweries have their fingerprints (metaphorically, of course) all over the bar and restaurant menus.
We instantly felt at home in this comfortable old building with heart. A petite series of dining/drinking rooms, with oodles of original features, leads to a long, gently sloping garden, where dogs were lazing in the sun at the feet of their owners.
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We stayed in a garden room, which was a treat. Tastefully outfitted and supremely comfortable, it featured a cosy bed, pretty bathroom, and thoughtful touches like bath salts, shampoo that smells like G&T, towelling robes, and a walking map and torch.
After settling in, we slid out of our flip flops and into trainers to tackle one of the strolls in the nearby hills. There are numerous walks to enjoy nearby. Ours took us up through the opposite hollow lane, deep and narrow, flanked by ancient, twisted trees, past remarkably well-preserved historic houses and the part-timbered church into open countryside. Lovely. Even lovelier was returning to a chilled glass of sweet sparkling Silly Moo cider at the pub bar.
We had dinner early in the main dining room, which gives Rutshire/Rivals vibes with its smart country styling – pew-like booth seating, sage green panelling and candlelight.
The menu is too hard to choose from. As we perused, there was a mixer of Vann Lane gin from just down the road, fragrant with cubeb pepper and kaffir lime, and one of the best non-alcoholic beers we’ve ever tried – Rise, produced by Langham Brewery. What a hoppy, light, sessionable, malty drop it is!
The front of house manager said we simply had to try the Scotch egg with brown sauce. In fact, she told us it’s that very brown sauce which made her want to work at the pub. Anywhere putting such a level of detail into their menu was the place for her, she added.
And it was a cracker. Their own tender, herby, not-too-salty sausagemeat, wrapped around a runny yolked egg, with that unreal, sweet-sharp but mellow spiced brown sauce on the side. Positively lickable!
So too was the homemade taramasalata – a pleasing pastel shade, and not the lurid orange stuff you’ll find in supermarkets. It was whipped to velvety lusciousness, bringing a gentle hum of smoke and slap of citrus to the party, with plenty of vividly-coloured radishes for scooping.
And onto the starters. Minced beef on toast seems to be making a comeback in the UK as more diners and chefs look to the culinary heavyweights of the past. I suspect the kitchen has been influenced here by London’s St John restaurant, where the dish has been on the menu for years.
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We’re so here for its nationwide revival, and loved the Harriers’ take. Melting, chunky minced beef in a sticky, savoury, umami, almost sweet Bovril-esque sauce, clinging to dripping toasted bread. And palate liveners of Parmesan and pickled onion petals.
A further starter of Newhouse Farm asparagus couldn’t have been better judged. Wild garlic, lemon, toasted hazelnuts and lashings of brown butter served to usher the nuttiness out of the veg, rather than overpower it.
I was very very impressed by the fact the kitchen team had gone to the trouble of making their own sausages for the bangers and mash. It arrives in the singular (one banger) but what a sausage it is. A giant-sized link stuffed with juicy, peppery pork meat with just the right level of seasoning and fat to keep it moist and soft but toothsome. The creamy colcannon was plentiful and moreish. And the gravy ever so moreish. Yep, this is the kind of food I want to eat.
Good vibes continued into the plate of their own seared, pink lamb, where so much flavour was injected from the well-aged, softly rendered fat, delicate as bone marrow. The chefs are clearly proud of the provenance of their veg, serving alongside the lamb a riot of colour and texture reflecting the season’s bounty – asparagus, broad beans, sprightly peas, halved radishes, and teensy little spuds which melted their starches into the brothy gravy and minty sweet pesto.
A must (really, I insist) is a side dish of crispy potatoes. One bowl suffices for two or even three people. Roughly cut in their skins, and smashed, they have the crunchiest edges and floofiest middles. Utterly addictive.
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A meal as good as this deserves to finish on a sweet high (you’d be surprised how many pubs fail at the final hurdle) and the chefs didn’t let us down at the end of dinner, delivering a chocolate bar-alike peanut butter parfait, set with a crunchy base, dollops of dulce de leche-style caramel, and tumbles of aerated chocolate.
Clouds of white chocolate mousse, sliced strawberries and strawberry sauce filled an eclair too, with a side of the most delicate, summery strawberry sorbet.
Then off to bed, to the soothing sounds of baby blue tits nesting in a nearby hedge.
The Merry Harriers is everything you think you might want from a country inn, and then some. The people running and working in it care, and that shows, from start to finish. It’s a very special place indeed, and demonstrates just why British pubs are so important and vital to our communities – especially in rural places. They truly are the beating heart of our villages and towns.
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