The Half Moon pub is now transformed back into its Grade II listed glory. It is now a “dining destination” and it has 12 “boutique” bedrooms. The grand opening was only a month ago, so we thought we would get in early as the destination for a family outing on Easter Monday.

The grand dining room – I have given up with the quotation marks – is ….no I can’t resist…. “eclectic”. Large baskets act as light shades, plenty of plants on rugged looking stacked shelves but luckily the tables and chairs were comfy and not the stolen from a skip variety. We went at 6:00pm, when it looked half empty but it gradually filled up . We were glad we had booked, as they were turning people away.

There were five of us and we were given the Sunday evening menu. It changes by the day and also by the time you eat – because they have rooms, they also serve breakfast. We opted for three courses including some puddings to share.

The stand out dish was the goats cheese and pumpkin tart with a walnut salad. The tart was warm and the pumpkin and goat’s cheese was light and airy. We had a couple of potted brown shrimps, which were emptied before I could try and some garlic wild mushrooms, that went even faster.

For the main course you can choose smaller portions. I chose the spiced roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, pine nuts and herbs, which I wouldn’t recommend. I thought it would be at least warm but it was straight from the fridge. We had two small sized goat’s cheese and hazelnut salad (again pretty icy), fish and chips (the fish was overcooked and hard in places) but the salmon with chorizo and butterbean cassoulet disappeared fast. So a mixed bag.

For dessert there was banoffee pie with caramel, a cheese plate and coffee ice cream.

After a couple of gendered pints, we stuck to the wine – a cheeky Albarino. It was not particularly cheap. Even with small plates, shared puddings and not a lot of alcohol, it came to £152.50 for the five of us.