A Night at The Boot at Repton

AD – We stayed as normal paying customers but this blog post does include affiliate links.

The Boot, Repton is an historic coaching inn located in the pretty South Derbyshire village of Repton, famous for the public school of the same name. The Boot Inn dates back to the 1600s and is now a popular and charming restaurant with rooms and micro-brewery.

I am incredibly fussy when it comes to parting my hard earned cash on a weekend away… Add in to the mix that the weekend was for my husband, who prefers much simpler food… and we were already quite fussy customers. After hours and hours of research, I settled on The Boot. Probably the tipping factor was falling in love with the décor of one of their rooms. It was towards the higher end of what I wanted to spend, but the room looked beautiful, had a king sized bed, the menu suited us both and it wasn’t too far from home.

I got the distinct impression from booking direct from their website that I was booking a particular room (a Superior Double) – so was less than impressed when we were initially shown to a different room on check in. I queried this immediately and was impressed with how the staff handled it (even if my husband died of embarrassment). The upshot is that we were given an entirely different room (a Junior Suite)  – which was lovely and incidentally much nicer than it looked on the website.

The room itself was nicely decorated with exposed original beams and lots of quirky features – like vintage alpine skis. The headboard was dusty and we had to request a second towel but everything else was as it should be.

Dinner at The Boot at Repton

We both enjoyed our meal immensely. There were several options at each course that sounded wonderful and everything was beautifully executed.

To start my husband ordered the soup whilst I plumped for Thai cod and prawn fish cake topped with smashed cucumber and sitting atop of a shellfish bisque. A divine combination of flavours, this little morsel set the bar high.

My main course was an absolute triumph of flavours and textures. It was so, so good. Blackened Cajun salmon (although it could actually have been far more ‘blackened’ for my liking), served with a deliciously piquant roasted pepper sauce, shellfish bisque, delicious little confit cherry tomatoes and a few slithers of courgette. Absolutely wonderful – one of the most enjoyable plates of food I have had the joy of experiencing.

My husband ordered a sirloin steak which he assured me was good. We both finished with the rhubarb and vanilla pavlova which they had written a birthday message for my husband which was a nice touch. Service throughout was good.

The whole meal (two glasses of prosecco, three courses each, a bottle of Rioja blanco (one of their ‘Boot picks’) and then a drink each at the end of the meal) came to £160 which, although a lot of money, is fairly standard for the quality of the food and service in the area. It is genuinely one of the meals I have enjoyed most in the last couple of years and I would go back in a shot.

We both slept well (something that is increasingly rare these days) and I even managed a small lie in!

Breakfast the next day was good. The night before we’d been lead to believe we needed to book a table – which turned out not to be the case when we were the only people in the pub at 9am! To be fair, it did then fill up pretty quickly, and runs a popular champagne breakfast too.

Breakfast isn’t factored into any of the room prices – but there’s a decent breakfast menu and it’s all cooked to order. My Eggs Benedict was really very good, with a generous amount of ham hock underneath crispy streaky bacon (heart attack pending).

Overall:

Our stay at The Boot in Repton was a lovely, relaxing night away. The food was delicious and the room comfortable. It is essentially just a very nice pub with rooms and as such is quite expensive for what it is… one tip would be to look at staying on a Sunday, when rooms are discounted by about a hundred pounds. It’s only the Sunday lunch menu on offer then, but it does run up to 6.30pm – for a bargain taste of The Boot – this is worth bearing in mind!

Go for:

A great pub with rooms – and a fantastic restaurant.

Details:

The Boot, 12 Boot Hill, Repton, DE65 6FT

Small car park for residents only (we snagged the penultimate spot at about 3pm).

Dogfriendly – dogs are welcome, just add a note to your booking.

Part of Bespoke Inns, a small local chain of pubs including The Dragon at Willington and Binary in Mickleover.