Food review: Peaberry’s cafe bar in Shrewsbury ticks all the boxes

For those who secure a star for the first time, there’ll be the party like no other was they celebrate their place among gastronomy’s elite.

And for the majority that retain an award previously conferred, there’ll be huge relief that they get to eat at the culinary industry’s top table for another year.

Those awards will pass Shropshire by. While once the county was nicknamed Gourmetville and, in the south Shropshire town of Ludlow, it boasted more Michelin stars than any place outside London, these days the scene is markedly different.

The last Michelin stars held were just beyond the county border, at Montgomery, and, more recently, near Tenbury Wells, until the sad closure of Pensons, at the end of last year. Presently, there are no restaurants with realistic aspirations to feature on the list.

And that’s indicative of a change of style for the county.

While once it could rival such huge cities as Birmingham in offering the best fine dining in the region, now it focuses on a different sort of food.

The county has great independents and a large number offering easy eating at affordable prices.

The change has come about for a variety of reasons.

Shropshire has found it more difficult to attract the top talent as chefs have opened in other locations, not least Birmingham, which, alongside the Lake District, ranks as the nation’s most important culinary destination, other than London.

The cost of fine dining has also been a factor. As the economic impacts of a disastrous Brexit, a punitive cost of living crisis, more than a decade of Tory cuts, and the incumbent Government’s refusal to provide permanent VAT relief to restaurant play out, people can’t afford to dine out as much.

When they do, it’s to those local venues that offer a range of tasty dishes at a price they can afford.

Peaberry’s, in Shrewsbury, embodies the type of restaurant that’s become popular in Shropshire.

Well run, occupying a large space in Shropshire’s county town, and providing interesting-but-familiar food at value-for-money prices, it ticks all of the boxes in these straitened times.

It’s a brilliantly conceived destination for the post-Pandemic era.

As a food-led café bar open seven days a week, it provides a space where visitors, families, friends, and locals can go for a coffee, a drink, or something to eat in a relaxed comfortable environment.

The interior is comfortable and inviting and workers can escape their home-office routines by meeting their friends and business colleagues for a catch-up, using the venue’s free high speed wifi.

The café has two specialities; the first being its brunch and lunch menu, and the second its inviting selection of flatbreads.

The brunch menu features vast, sourdough sandwiches, alongside healthier salad bowls, such classics as a range of egg dishes and pancakes, and a pleasing selection of plate-filling dishes like oak smoked salmon, avocado, and chunky house salsa.

The latter features delicious wood-fire flatbreads at £13 each, with combinations such as The Big Buddha Thai Chicken Satay, the Tokyo Drift Teriyaki and Ginger Pork and the Prince of Persia Beef Kofta.

Those come with a variety of sides, including a Mexican style plate of fries with salsa, chillis, nacho cheese sauce and tortilla crunch and the New York Diner featuring shredded pastrami and diced gerkhins.

I started with a pot of tea, a warming way to begin and an enjoyable and relaxing start to any daytime meal.

The artisan flatbreads were too appealing to ignore and made for delicious eating.

It was cooked to order and opening with a puff of hot, doughy air, the flatbread was generously topped with deliciously fresh and flavoursome elements.

There was plenty to enjoy from a simply conceived but exceptionally executed and delicious dish.

Fresh herbs, shredded carrot, slithers of red onion, and drizzles of sauce combined to produce a compelling, healthy, and relatively light dish.

The fries were slightly less impressive on my visit. They were slightly limp and covered with basic tortilla chips and then drizzled with a cheese sauce that was a bit lacking in flavour – just not my cup of tea at all.

A slice of cake brought lunch back to a more even keel and put the disappointment of the fries firmly to one side and was a reminder that good quality cafes like this one are a delightful place to spend time.

And that – fries aside – is what Peaberry’s is. It’s well-run, service is good, it’s been nicely decorated and it’s been popular among locals for some time.

There are plenty of other enticing dishes to try and its flatbreads and slices menu makes for good reading.

In an era where diners are increasingly looking for good value, Peaberry’s ticks most of the boxes.

8/10