The Hollist Arms Menu

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Rooted in tradition. Served with quiet brilliance.

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The menu at the Hollist Arms doesn’t shout. It doesn’t overreach. What it does is quietly outclass nearly everything else for miles — possibly more.

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This is food with a French backbone and English soul. Every dish feels considered, restrained, and quietly confident — the kind of cooking that doesn’t need garnish for show because the technique speaks for itself. You’ll find 36-hour French onion soup so rich and deep it might count as a confession. Chicken liver parfait so silky you wonder if it should be whispered about rather than served. And then the rotisserie chicken — dry-rubbed, marinated, basted — perfectly crisp on the outside, tender within, and enough to make you swear allegiance to the bird.

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It’s pub food in theory. In execution, it’s more like a love letter to country cooking, kissed with the kind of French technique that’s only possible when someone knows exactly what they’re doing and is modest enough not to say it.

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Even the burger is a study in precision — built from a proprietary grind, cloaked in melting Taw Valley cheddar, and served with hand-cut fries that recall the best bistro in Paris or Brooklyn, depending on your mood.

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There’s cottage pie, too — unapologetically rich, comforting, properly seasoned. A chopped salad for balance, colourful and fresh. And daily dishes that might include pork shoulder, lamb belly, or something caught on a whim from the coast that morning.

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Paul’s kitchen doesn’t shout. It doesn’t need to. It just delivers. Night after night. Like a well-trained horse who knows the distance, the fence, and the finish line.

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And it pairs beautifully — sometimes improbably — with the wines on offer: bright Picpoul, robust Cahors, a bottle or two from the legendary Mas de Daumas Gassac, and the kind of cold glass of Langham Ale that makes a rotisserie chicken feel like Sunday was invented for it.