We’d had high hopes for The Cow at Dalbury Lees. The menu looked polished, the interiors stylish, and reviews online made it sound like a hidden gem near Ashbourne. So, with a group of five adults, two small children, and the lure of a long Sunday lunch ahead, we arrived — a touch early at 11.45 for a noon booking — to find the team setting up. To their credit, the staff couldn’t have been nicer. They welcomed us in without hesitation, found us a spacious table in the Orangery, and generally set the tone for what felt like it should have been a great afternoon.
The Cow is undeniably handsome inside. All soft wood, and rustic touches, with walls lined with pictures that feel somewhere between country chic and boutique hotel. And they serve Timothy Taylor. It’s a good setting for a proper Sunday lunch – relaxed, grown-up but still family friendly – and it feels like a place that knows how to do things properly.
Sadly, the food didn’t quite live up to the promise. The starters looked the part but lacked much wow factor. The heritage tomato soup was pleasant enough but thin – more warm gazpacho than the rich, layered tomato broth you hope for. Two of us had the lamb-on-pitta kebab-style starter, which was decent, though a bit on the safe side in terms of big hitting flavour. A pumpkin salad offering played to the autumnal weather but felt a bit bland. The outlier – a mackerel and fig dish – at least had a bit of adventure about it, even if it didn’t totally come together. It felt a bit odd.
For mains, full marks for effort: we liked that Yorkshire puddings were offered with every dish (yes, even the cod, though we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to order it that way). The two roasted cod dishes were well cooked and nicely paired with a chive cream and fondant potato. The belly pork, and lamb roasts, looked good too, generous and well presented. The nut roast, though, was more about texture than flavour – the kind of dish that feels like it’s there for completeness rather than conviction, and also came with a carrot which was so woefully undercooked we questioned whether it was deliberate. The one true standout was the gravy – dark, glossy, and thick enough to cling to your knife. It had the richness and depth the soup could have done with.
Desserts were fine: a sticky toffee pudding that did its job and a chocolate orange cake that sounded more exciting than it tasted. Both sweet enough, both perfectly edible, neither particularly memorable – aside from the enormous portions they came in.
Despite the middling food, we left semi-liking the place. That’s down entirely to the staff, who were consistently excellent – friendly, helpful, and good-humoured, even as the toddlers in our group did their best to redecorate the table. They even washed up and returned a plastic bowl one of the little ones had used, which tells you everything about the sort of people running the place.
So, The Cow at Dalbury Lees? Stylish, comfortable, and full of good intentions. But with food that falls just short of its setting, it’s not somewhere we’ll be driving an hour back to. Still, we’ll give credit where it’s due: it’s a lovely spot with a lovely team – just one that needs its kitchen to catch up with its front of house.
