The Barley near Thorpe Hesley just off junction 35 on the M1, is a pub bar & restaurant serving value for money, great quality, fresh food and is a great stop off for people living/working close-by or travelling past the junction to grab some refreshments and homemade food. The Barley change their food menu seasonally, offer a great selection of seafood making them stand out from other local restaurants, and have a range of offers too. The Barley also has a large marquee & beer garden and provides weekly and monthly entertainment. AD | PR INVITE

Main Menu

I have visited The Barley a couple of occasions now, firstly to experience their curry night, and then a couple of times since to try out some delights from their new seasonal menus announced so far this year (2023), offering a wide range of high quality meals from fish, grill, burgers, sandwiches, kebabs and so on. There is something for everyone here and The Barley Head Chef is definitely thinking outside of the usual “pub classics” box with the variety of fish seafood on offer.

Out of choice tend not to eat seafood, but it is nice to see something different on a menu which is fresh, cooked well and presented beautifully for diners to enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with a good old lasagne and chilli con carne sometimes (if done well), but in a crowded market, giving diners that something different will hopefully pay off, as it seemed to be doing from how busy the restaurant was whenever I have visited.

If you order small plates and mains, the restaurant should ask if you wish the small plates to be served as a starter or together with your mains. We just let everything come together and just look at how good everything looked, and it tasted amazing as well. Some of the small plates by the way are by no means small – such as the quesadillas, Korean pork etc.

So far I have enjoyed (prices subject to change/guidance only);

• Grilled Scallops – Small Plate (£7.95) – served in shells, with a herb crumb, on a bed of salad leaves with black artisan bread. Ben ordered these but told me that they were delicious and cooked perfectly. I dipped some bread into the sauce/herb crumb and it was mouth-watering!
• Korean BBQ Pork – Small Plate (£8.25) – served with artisan bread. To say this was a small plate, you get your money’s worth in the portion on this dish. The sticky BBQ pork is very tangy, and the pork literally melts in the mouth and is so tender
• Panko Crusted Baked Mushrooms – Small Plate (£6.95) – with blue cheese and garlic. I got 3 big juicy mushrooms, and LOTS of cheese – a gooey, comforting side dish.
• Quesadilla – Small Plate (£8.00) – tortilla, chicken, gherkins, peppers and mozzarella. This is a huge portion if you were looking to have this as a starter, I’d probably share it or have as a main with another small plate or side. I really enjoyed this though, there was lots of melted cheese and a crunch from the veggies which was great.
• Crispy Chicken Sandwich – Served until 6pm (£8.95) – served in toasted ciabatta with baby gem lettuce, sliced tomato and sweet chilli maybe as well as a side of chips. This is a bargain of a dish as the sandwich is large and you get the chips too. A really tasty bite and the chicken was spot on too.
• Chicken, Chorizo & Mushroom Paella (£17.50) – a large bowlful of stodgy goodness, seasoned well. There wasn’t loads and loads of chorizo but nice little bits throughout the dish. Loads of chicken though. A great filling meal.
• Lamb Shish Kebab (£16.50) – served with a mixed salad, house salsa, alioli, chips and pita bread. This was divine. The lamb was marinated and cooked to be tender and fall apart (bar the usual bit of fat you get from lamb), with a slight kick to it. Chips are decent too and aplenty, in fact all accompaniments were great and more than enough, the alioli being very garlicky (warning for those on a first date haha!). I thoroughly enjoyed this and ate every last bit.
• Texan Style Brisket Burger (£12.00) – sliced brisket with melted blue cheese, lettuce tomatoes, house burger sauce, gherkins, in a brioche bun with side salad and chips. This burger was delicious, and for the price I think it’s stunning! The cheese wasn’t over-powering to the delicious brisket, but gave enough flavour to pair with it well. Chips were aplenty again! Another great dish.
• Barley Burger (£10.00) – beef patty with melted cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, house burger sauce and gherkins in a brioche bun and served with chips and a side salad. The burger was super tasty, and very messy but a good burger always is. This meal is really good value for money.
• Chicken Lollipops 4 Ways (£15.00) – Chicken drumsticks BBQ, Spicy, Satay and Korean with mash and side salad. This is a dish had never seen before and I loved it. There was sooooo much chicken and I loved the creamy mash underneath soaking up all the different flavourings. I would say maybe it’s one flavour too many, I wasn’t getting a lot from the Korean drumstick but maybe because the others were quite powerful flavours. Really filling – don’t order anything else with this one haha.

The Barley also have a dessert offering of freshly in-house made (what does this chef NOT do?) cakes, cheesecakes and they also have brownies available on the bar too. The flavours and variety of cake/cheesecakes will change from time to time, but I tried the Reece’s Chocolate cake which was yummy, indulgent and very moist. My colleagues advised that the Lemon Cheesecake, and Biscoff Cake were also very good.

I really hope that every dish on their menu gets to be enjoyed by someone, and I have to say we were really impressed with the presentation, taste, quality and amount of food. The service here was great too and it’s so nice to see a local venue busy with customers.

Everyday Breakfast

Throughout 2023, The Barley also started to offer a daily Breakfast menu available 7 days a week from 9am to 11:4am. We finally went to try this in October 2023 on a Sunday. Whilst I understand in the couple of months leading up to this visit that the pub had some staff issues unfortunately, this did impact on our experience here with a long wait for service and food, when the place was very quiet. The pub has since contacted me to apologise and explain this, which we really appreciated and I’d like to say that we will still be back to The Barley as the quality of the foods served here is always top notch.

We both went for the Full English although I went for the Small (£8.50) as there was still plenty on the plate and I am not keen on black pudding. This came with 1 sausage, 1 bacon, 1 large mushroom, potato rosti, baked beans, cherry tomatoes, 2 eggs (I chose poached) on toast. Everything was cooked to my liking and my poached eggs were perfect! You get a lot of beans to which made me happy. I wasn’t keen on the potato rosti, ours were a little overdone and tasteless, however I have been told by others that they are usually really good. I washed this down with a sweet, warming hot chocolate 🙂

Ben went with the Full English (£10.95) which came with 2 sausages, 2 bacon, black pudding, 1 large mushroom, potato rosti, baked beans, cherry tomatoes, 2 eggs (he chose fried) on toast. Aside from the rosti as commented on above, I think he would have liked a little more black pudding, but everything else was faultless. Rally hoping the staff issues are ironed out soon as it’s back to an amazing experience as it always has been previously!

Monday Night Curry Night (Not on their current menu but fingers crossed it returns!)

During their Autumn/Winter menu offering last year, The Barley offered a Monday Night Curry Night, from 4pm this was £20 for 2 people and amazing value as you get a each received a curry accompanied by rice, naan and poppadoms with dips as well as a bottle of cobra or soft drink. This really was a good offer (hope they do this again in the future) and the choices of curry were; Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb Bhuna, Beef Madras or Vegan Curry. The curries were all freshly homemade too which was great to see as I was conscious we would be getting microwaved, bought in curries but they seemed fresh to us. Portion sizes were aplenty as well.

I tried the Lamb Bhuna which was lovely and saucy and the meat was tender – really tasty. Ben chose the Beef Madras which had plenty of meat in and although not the standard madras spiciness he is used to, still had a really sharp kick to it which was perfect. The food was really tasty and we were absolutely stuffed from the amount too. Hope to see the Curry Night come back onto the menu!

We couldn’t fault the service, staff were really friendly and inviting. I would definitely recommend The Barley’s Curry Night and we are hoping to return time and time again for more food from here, maybe their Tuesday Steak Nights or a Sunday Roast!

For more information on the Barley and their up to date menus, check out their Facebook Page here.

I hope that you enjoyed my review and it has inspired you to give this pub a visit. Please check out my other reviews, and my recipes too! If you have any restaurant/pub/café suggestions for me to try, please leave a comment below. If you are a restaurant/food vendor and would like to collaborate with me in any way, please just email me at jensfoodblog@gmail.com!

Happy munching!

Jen

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