Food review: The Hundred House Inn, Telford

It started well, tailed off in the middle and ended with a damp squib.

No, I'm not talking about this week's episode of The X Factor – and it would be weird if I was, for it's not broadcast until 8pm, I'd have to be Mystic Meg or some other soothsayer – I'm talking about The Hundred House, at Norton.

Starter and service = brilliant.

Main and service = okey dokey.

Dessert and pay-the-bill time = let down.

I'll get my coat. Time to go.

The Hundred House Inn is one of the region's most reliable and consistent restaurants. It's been in the Phillips family for 31 years and they've worked wonders with it. Taken over in 1985 by Henry and his wife Sylvia, they've achieved a terrific amount during their three decades at the helm.

Their sons, David and Stuart, have been instrumental in maintaining high standards and preserving the beautiful gardens that were created by Sylvia.

Great beer and decent food has long been at the heart of their offering and that remains the case. The beers stand proud like sentries on display, offering the best of real ale from across the region. The food also remains robust, flavoursome and driven by the seasons. The Hundred House has retained two AA rosettes for approximately 789 years – I exaggerate, ever so slightly, to make the point – and there's been no diminution in quality.

Stuart continues to create menus that are traditional and rooted in the classics. There's no showiness or fuss, no pretence. Stuart's food is straightforward and well-seasoned, big on flavour and prettily presented. Precision and inaccurate descriptions were nagging issues on my most recent visit, more of which later, but he remains one of the county's most accomplished and redoubtable cooks.

The Hundred House is a restaurant that most discerning diners should visit.

It's a stick-in-on-your-list-now place, a venue that's equally adept at serving light lunches as it is hearty dinners, that has mastered the art of gourmet tasting nights but can also smash out a brilliant Sunday roast. All things to all people sums up its culinary approach – and it does it pretty well.

Like all decent restaurants, The Hundred House gets busy at weekends and so I visited on a Monday, the quietest night of the week. I'd assumed that would lead to better service, given that staff would have fewer people to attend to and, therefore,less work to do.

The best laid plans. . . as John Steinbeck and Robert Burns once said.

Service was decent when it happened – but all too often it didn't.

Like the sun that refuses to shine, the Lottery numbers that refuse to win or the reluctant bride who refuses to show; it was conspicuous by its absence.

While propping up the bar and attempting to pay my bill, I stood alone, unobserved and unattended for five minutes at an empty bar until a chef popped his head round the corner and offered to help.

The waitress and restaurant manager were nowhere to be seen.

The pace was similarly slow when it came to taking dessert orders and clearing plates.

When the two staff came to the table, they were perfectly pleasant and polite. But there was a lack of energy and industry and for most of the evening I was out on a limb.

The food was better than the service. Warm bread came to the table shortly after I'd placed my order and I started with the dish of the night, a chorizo and black pudding stack with a rich cheese sauce and a delightfully dressed salad.

It was storming. Packed with flavour, bringing together good combinations – earthy black pudding and acid relish, bitter leaves and spicy chorizo, creamy cheese sauce and fragrant salad dressing – it was delicious to eat. It was served generously, it would easily have made a main, and had been skilfully cooked. So far, so happy.

My main was partridge served with a partridge sausage roll, delightful mash, kale, parsnips, courgettes, red cabbage and a brilliant and intoxicating sauce.

It was a Sunday roast, in short, but without the roast potatoes. The partridge was mostly brilliant. Seasoned generously with delicious herbs, it was a taste of autumn. It hadn't been particularly well deboned, however, and between a skin-on fillet and sausage roll my teeth crunched on shards of bone four times. Once is funny, twice is annoying – after that, it's time for pud. The accompanying vegetables were nicely cooked; al dente and light.

Dessert was a disappointment. The pastry chef at The Hundred House is a talented operator by the name of Sheila. Sheila's Sweets are advertised in the bar and only a fool would miss out. I ordered a pavlova with amaretto ice cream and mulled fruit. As I waited for it to arrive, I anticipated the crunchy meringue-like exterior, the soft and mallowey interior and the creamy-fruit mix. It was nothing like it. Dessert was a crunchy meringue nest filled with fruit. No soft. No mallow. No joy.

The meringue nest was fine, of course, though I felt like I'd been to the car showroom and ordered a BMW, then been given a Vauxhall. Vauxhalls are great. Vauxhalls are brilliant. Vauxhalls won the Best Supermini at the Fleet World Honours 2016. Kazam. But Vauxhalls aren't BMWs. And meringue nests aren't pavlovas. They lack the lightness of a dessert that was created after the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Any old fool knows that.

As with my main, I waited an age for the table to be cleared. And then I realised it wouldn't. So I stood at the bar. And waited and waited until a helpful chef came out and called someone to assist me.

I've eaten brilliant dinners at The Hundred House and I've eaten ones where they've taken their eye off the ball – bones in sausage rolls shouldn't happen, service should be crisp and food should be accurately described. It still earns a 4/5 rating because the venue's great, the food is packed with flavour, well sourced and well presented. But there are times when we all need to pull our socks up because we're not performing to our best. And, good as it usually is, this is one such. Come on, fellas. You know how much people love you. And you know you can do better.

By Andy Richardson