My partner and I decided to spend one of our rare sunny days visiting Wollaton Hall and Deer Park and decided to stop off at the Wheelhouse for a snack before continuing on to Wollaton Park. The pub is about 5 minutes walk from the Wollaton Park Main entrance.

The Wheelhouse itself is an interesting and well presented building at least from the front, as the name suggests the building is in the style of a wheel (at least the front of the building is, as the wheel shape of the building does not extend to the full circumference of the circle), with a beer garden at the front of the building.

The interior is also well presented if common to the Hungry Horse and Weatherspoons type of pubs and  contains a bar, restaurant, and a pool table. As my partner and I had only stopped in for a brief snack I decided to try a Bacon cheeseburger from the Burger Chips and Pint deal section for £5.99. The service at the till was reasonably swift but was a little let down by the barman’s lack of knowledge of the deals the pub offered, so I had to wait while he conferred with a colleague as to whether the Bacon cheeseburger was on the deals range, the service was also quite perfunctory rather than friendly.

When the burger arrived it wasn’t particularly appetising, the bun appeared half burnt on one side and somewhat uncooked on the other. The cheese appeared to be of the thin craft cheese slice variety, and the bacon was a thin piece of salted bacon rather than a normal piece I was hoping for. The salad was also disappointing as it consisted of only one slice of tomato and half a lettuce leaf. The meal was unfortunately not saved by the chips which were obviously not freshly cooked as they were only moderately warm rather than piping hot. When I bit into the burger I could taste the quality of the meat wasn’t the greatest, the burger had a definite Football Burger van quality to it and it was difficult to taste either the cheese or bacon. The meal was also let down by the chips which had a somewhat tough texture.

I know many people will say “Well you get what you pay for!” and I do understand that for £5.99 I’m unlikely to get a Michelin star meal, but I do believe that we should expect that British pub “snack” food should be of a reasonable standard and though my short history of food hunts with myfoodhunt aka Marcus the poor quality of British pub “snack” food has quickly become a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

The Wheelhouse Pub is one of the Hungry Horse Chain Pubs located near to the entrance of Wollaton park at Russell Drive