White Bear, Monday Market Street, Devizes, SN10 1DN.

(01380) 727588

Now the children are back at school, I arranged to meet a friend for lunch for a good old gossip without interruptions.

I knew the White Bear had changed management and someone told me they did good food, so we though we would give it a try.

It is a lovely old Tudor building, with low ceiling and lots of wooden beams everywhere, but I thought it was slightly marred by the tacky horse brasses everywhere, and it was extremely quiet and a little unwelcoming.

It is also reputed to be haunted by the ghosts of a horse which fell into the cellar while delivering stock and broke its neck and was put down and buried there, and a lady who was murdered by her husband in 1655 because she was having an affair – her husband escaped justice.

The menu was disappointing, only offering sandwiches, baguettes, jacket potatoes and lots of dishes with chips.

I ordered a steak and onion baguette (£5.45) and Alexia went for the jacket potato with prawns and marie-rose sauce (£5.20).

It wasn’t until later that we noticed a specials board, which had not been pointed out to us, which offered rather more tempting dishes like hickory chicken, pasta carbonara and salmon fishcakes.

Our food arrived fairly quickly, and both meals had generous portions sizes.

Alexia’s jacket potato came with a good helping of prawns, salad and coleslaw, which she very much enjoyed.

My baguette was accompanied by salad and of course chips. The steak was well done which is how I like it (although I wasn’t offered any choice), the chips were nice and crispy and the salad was fresh.

We were not offered a pudding, so presumed they didn’t do them. However just as we were going, we noticed a board listing traditional offerings such as trifle, crumble and bread and butter pudding.

Although rather an old-fashioned pub, which probably appeals more to pensioners, it was good value. The bill came to just £17.15, which included two white wine spritzers.

Open Monday to Saturday 11am–11pm; Sunday noon–8pm

Under new management

Bar with seating area plus two dining areas

Bed and breakfast

Snacks, main meals, steaks, pies, salads and puddings on menu