The Red Lion

A new spot to add to our favourites list!🫶🏻 I’ve been following The Red Lion on Instagram for months and whenever they post a picture of their food, I’m always sending it to my partner saying we need to try!! We still have the holiday blues so thought it would be nice to venture out of our local area for date night, and so The Red Lion was our choice and we are so happy we chose to go! They don’t have an extensive menu, but I always think that’s a sign that the food must be good. The main dishes they do are burgers, pizzas, and salads. They have an array of starters too! We both opted for pizzas with myself going for the Cotto de Fungi pizza which had ham, mushrooms, mascarpone, and thyme on it. The only thing I can say is wow. Their pizzas are exceptional🙌🏼. All pizzas are cooked fresh and had the best quality ingredients. We also ordered a side of fries which were SO yummy. The general atmosphere of the pub was so calm and relaxing. As soon as you walk in, you are welcomed by the staff and greeted with smiles. The lovely Francesca served us and made our experience so easy and enjoyable🫶🏻. A spot that is a bit out of the way for us, but somewhere we will definitely be revisiting!

Currently shut, so don't waste a visit. The Red Lion was sorely missed during the last three years and the recent reopening was therefore much anticipated. Miles and team have done a fabulous job in completely overhauling the gardens, transforming them into an expansive, private and luxurious oasis in which to chill out and relax. Table service is fast and efficient, the staff are friendly and helpful and most importantly the food is top notch. The wine selection is also decent. Ideally book a table within the heated enclosure or one of the seats in the sun. Well worth a visit

What a fantastic place to visit. Me and my partner spontaneously found this lovely little place only 10 minutes from us and it majorly exceeded our expectations. The waitresses were all very attentive and lovely, the venue (outside area) was beautiful and the food was amazing. Our first visit of many, this will definitely be a new spot for us to enjoy some good food & drinks!

First time here today, and well worth the visit. Very stylish interior, friendly staff, and the food was creative and delicious. My wife had "The Lion" (a coffee brisket / pulled pork burger) and I had "The Bird" (a Southern Fried chicken burger). Importantly for us, the pub is dog friendly, and they allowed Alea to eat inside with us, kindly providing a sausage for her, which she loved. Well worth a visit.

Had heard great things about the Red Lion however we were massively disappointed. We were seated outside in the beer garden for dinner at 7 just as it was starting to get quite cool outside. We assumed that this was because it was busy inside so didn’t ask to move indoors. In hindsight we would definitely have asked to be seated indoors as the notion of sitting outside on some garden furniture simply had not crossed our minds when booking a table for ‘restaurant dinner’ as our reservation confirmation said. We had 2 of the light bites to start which were really excellent and expectations were set very high. This raised the question if you’re this good at food why limit yourselves to pizzas and burgers? Do more like these!! Unfortunately though, for some odd reason the menu is then limited to purely pizza and burgers. The pizza was no better than okay and by the time it arrived it was starting to get cold outside. The pizza did not stay warm for long either and at nearly £20 each they were outrageously overpriced and not just because of how quickly they got cold, if I were setting a price for them based on their quality it would be about £8-11. Furthermore you would need to have a world class detective with you to have found the sausage on one and the cheese on the other however having waited long enough for our food I just wanted to eat so decided against raising an issue at the time. Overall a disappointing experience given the high praise we had heard about the place. I don’t mind paying what we paid for dinner when you’re paying for quality but it did feel like for that price you would have expected the same quality that we got from the starters from the mains as well. Having customers who have booked to come for dinner sit outside to eat without offering an indoor option when the indoor space was completely unused seems like a total waste of space and I’m confident we would have had a better evening if we had been indoors. Final piece of feedback, I had to go inside to the bar to ask for the bill as it wasn’t brought to us. The server behind the bar who gave me my bill didn’t bother to ask if everything had been alright or if we had enjoyed our meal. If they had I would have given a short summary of this feedback there and then and probably not bothered writing a google review.

We had a table for Sunday dinner here recently. We were greeted by the incredibly attentive and polite staff and seated quickly at our pre booked table. The menu is something to behold! My starter was the scallops, which was simply a masterpiece. My main was the beef and my partner had the lamb. Both meals were sizeable and presented magnificently. The sides too were astonishing, with the cauliflower cheese being the most incredible I’ve ever eaten. All of the meat is locally sourced, and all of the sides, sauces and condiments are home made. It truly shows. The food is beyond words. I do not possess the vocabulary to articulate how good it is, this is a must-try place. As too is the service. Miles and the team are personable, hard working and very efficient. At no point did we want for a thing, despite it being very busy. Truly impressive. We elected to stay on for a while and having checked the table was not needed for another booking, my partner ordered one of the impressive cocktails, and I myself another beautiful pint. It really is worth making mention of the cocktails - the skill level required to make them is incredibly high and you could be forgiven for thinking you are in a central london high end cocktail bar, yet without the london price tag. I really cannot emphasise how much we enjoyed the food and drink - it is simply perfect. To the rear there is an incredible garden with ample seating, booths, a pizza oven and bar. As a carpenter the oak frame was really something to admire! A real gem! The village of Great Bowden is also a beautiful setting for such a wonderful eatery. The bill was very reasonable indeed for such high quality. Miles - to yourself and the entire team - thank you so much for making our Sunday one of legend. We will absolutely return and will not hesitate to recommend you to anyone who asks.