Family Dining At The Shepherds Stonehouse Pizza & Carvery Nottingham

I love living in Nottingham, we have so much on our doorstep and yet we have become creatures of habit with the places we visit, the shops we go to and the restaurants we eat in. 

So it’s always great to hear of new places we haven’t been to before and recently I had the pleasure of discovering a family dining eatery that we had never heard of even though we are around 30 minutes away and have travelled regularly in the area. 

The Shepherds at Stragglethorpe, Radcliffe-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire is part of the Stonehouse restaurants chain and I was excited to hear that this one has a focus on both carvery meals and pizzas.

Don’t panic however if these are not your preferred foods there is a reasonable selection of burgers and tasty pick and mix starter options.

The carvery on offer works like any other with its roast meats and then unlimited vegetable that you can help yourself too. The difference with this carvery is that you can also add salad items to your plate too if you wish. 

Although salad on my carvery is not my personal taste I adore the idea of a buffet salad bar with pizza and burgers though! 

The Shepherds has a large car park and is situated right on a park and ride which would make for tea on the way home easy. I guess the only thing making tea easier would be a takeaway, however they have that on offer too!  

The inside is really nicely laid out with areas slightly separated off with half walls, posts and well positioned tables that offer some space while eating and making it feel relaxed to while away some time with friends or family chatting and eating.

I hate dining venues that have tables too closely packed making it impossible to talk to those on my table so this was nice especially for a family dining experience. 

We chose to have a pick and mix for starters and ordered items that we could all eat but there was a fairly long 25-30 minute wait. However the food was obviously cooked from fresh and it all arrived together but keeping the kids patient was a little difficult but I am sure being recently opened they are still learning.

Even after the wait my husband described the riblets as the tastiest ribs he’s had for a while and Joshua loved the chicken wings.

I tend to have potato skins as a starter as it’s an old faithful but was surprised to see it was cooked differently than I had eaten it before. With its deep-fried appearance and soft liquid cheese. Generally I have only eaten them when crispy on the bottom not crispy all over and also normally with melted harder cheeses but the ones served were tasty.

Mains consisted of a burger with cheese and bacon for me (another of my old faithfuls) while Ollie and Joshua both had Pizza.

For mains we were given an electronic device that flashed and buzzed when our order was ready which you take to cooking/carvery area and get your meal and then help yourself to all the salad or vegetable and chips you like which was a great help with sorting the kids meals as we could add-on what they liked as opposed to having to pick things off. 

The portion sizes were great and with more than reasonable pricing. The staff were really helpful and attentive. I believe some staff members were fairly new but were full of eager enthusiasm so I have no doubt they will do well if they keep up the same level of service I saw with customers that were there when we visited. 

We will certainly be back as we are eager to try their breakfast offerings too with a buffet style unlimited breakfast.

Disclaimer: We were given a complimentary discount for the purposes of the review. All thoughts and opinions were independently formed by members of The Oliver’s Madhouse.