We took a break from walking the Gardens of Chatsworth House (Pemberly, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) to grab lunch. Here’s what we thought.
There are a few lunch options around Chatsworth House, most are little ice cream or pre-made sandwich stands that we skipped over enjoyed at the end of our meal. Up at the top of the main hill outside the gates in The Stables area are 2 other options we checked out. This first was a sit-down restaurant with servers. Menu looked ok but a little pricey and slow for what we had on our list to still check out.
We opted for the buffet style restaurant, and it met our modest expectations just fine. Jen enjoyed a beef pie with some roasted and new potatoes, and I got some sausages and veggies with more potatoes and gravy. We got a slice of the lemon cake, and a wine and a beer. Still about £40 so not a bargain, but better than the restaurant.
The beef pie was the winner, but I liked the sausages fine, too. Jen enjoyed her Chatsworth Rouge, and I especially liked my Gardener’s Tap beer, made even better by the great story on the bottle.
Back in the early days of Chatsworth, they brewed beer up on a hill away from the main house. Tired of lugging barrels up and down the hill, they installed a lead pipe running underground down the hill and into the main house where the staff could serve guests. Decades later it was discovered that the gardeners had actually dug secret holes and tapped into the pipe to steal beer over the years – hence the name “Gardener’s Tap.”
The lemon cake sucked, so we got a vanilla ice cream cone. That was awesome. Sometimes you gotta adapt.
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