Sunday Lunch at the Keans Head

The Keans Head is located opposite St Mary’s Church in the historic Lace Market district of Nottingham on the narrow cobbled pavement of St Mary’s Gate. I read that the building once housed a factory producing Nottingham lace, but these days it is one of the numerous Castle Rock Brewery pubs scattered throughout the area.

It is really great pub that serves excellent real ales from the Castle Rock Brewery as well as many guest beers. It can be really rammed and busy some times and then nice and quiet other times, but however it is when you visit you can always be sure of a great welcome and a good time. We ‘water’ here a lot when we are pub crawling around the Lace Market and have never had a bad time 🙂

On the Castle Rock website they tell us more about the name of the pub “The Kean’s Head was named after the early 19th Century Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean – infamous for his turbulence and megalomania, and renowned for his ingenious performances in Richard III, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Act V Scene I of the latter, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the king’s jester Yorick, is shown on the pub logo.”

You can learn something new any day even when you are heading down the pub!

This time we were here on a Sunday so it seemed to be a pretty good idea to get some snap and try out their Sunday Lunchtime offerings.

Roast Dinner Menu

The main choices on the Menu at the Keans Head, well the main options for the carnivore anyways, were Topside of Beef, Pork Shoulder, and Roast Chicken Breast. They were all priced up at £10.95 for the one course, if you wanted a starter or a pud you could get the 2 or 3 course deal just like so many places these days for £14.50 or £16.95. Today though I was just sticking with the one plate of food.

Vegetarian and Vegan wise they were offering a ‘country veg and cashew nut roast’ which still came with roasties and the veg and gravy. Good to see everyone catered for even if I only really was looking at the meat section.

Anyhow I digressed momentarily, I went ahead and ordered the Topside of Beef which was described as being ‘slow-roasted each week, served medium well’ mainly because I like Beef the most and I can.

Topside of Beef

The Sunday lunch plate was a pretty good effort and was most enjoyable. If I am being picky I would say that the beef was cut a bit thick for my teeth and I would have liked it a bit more tender. Having said that I did turn up at about 2.45pm well after the start of official ‘Sunday Lunch’ service so I was a bit late to the party when the meat came out of the oven.

I really liked the proper gravy and the Yorkshire pudding, there was a flavour that I was trying to pluck from my food senses that I think was garlic which gave it a little boost and made it a whole lot tastier. In fact Gravy wise it was probably the best bit of gravy I have had on a Sunday lunch down the pub for a while

Vegetable wise I was getting plenty of really well cooked Roast Potatoes with a super crispy skin that I was really enjoying. A patch of roasted parsnips lurked under the spuds trying to pretend to be Roast Potatoes as the pesky little blighters often do . Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower made up the rest of the vegetable party on the plate and they were all welcomed into the mix.

Overall I like the Sunday Lunch at the Keans Head, I like the pub anyway as it serves great beer, and it was quiet enough on the Sunday to get a table and to enjoy my food in a nice relaxed atmosphere.