Marco Pierre White’s The Swan Inn at Aughton reviewed by Advertiser journalist Michael Byrne

Jul 7 2011 by Michael Byrne, Ormskirk Advertiser

Michael Byrne has a great evening at The Swan Inn at Aughton

ANY client of a restaurant associated with the name Marco Pierre White would expect high standards.

And I have to say I was very impressed on my first visit to The Swan Inn at Aughton.

The Hell’s Kitchen star officially re-opened The Swan Inn last February.

Although he is in overall charge of the restaurant, the day-to-day running of the venue is in the hands of head chef Matt Castelli and general manager David Thorneycroft.

From the moment, we arrived the service was excellent and the food was delicious. The restaurant has an a la carte menu, which features a fabulous range of dishes.

But we chose from the set menu which offers excellent value for such an establishment with a two-course meal for £16.50 and a three-course meal for £19.50. For starters we chose the caldo soup, a delicious Portuguese vegetable soup, and the ham hock terrine, which came with a very tasty mustard sauce.

Our main courses were the beef bourguignon and the sea bass, which was served with potatoes and a seafood sauce that had mussels in it.

Both of which lived up to our expectations and were fabulous meals. Staff members were very helpful and were able to recommend an excellent wine choice to go with the bourguignon, a lovely Australian shiraz which complemented the meal very nicely.

We ordered an extra side dish of roasted vegetables which were very nice. But if we were to make a criticism we would say they were slightly over-seasoned for our tastes.

My wife was very jealous of my choice of dessert, a mouthwatering summer fruits pavlova which was extremely light.

However, she greatly enjoyed the double chocolate mousse served with pistachio ice cream which was delicious.

All in all our visit to The Swan Inn was a great experience and we will definitely be returning.