Not the English Pub. This tavern doesn't imitate anything - it is the real thing. The English Pub could well be anywhere in England (or Ireland) with a name like the Fox and Hound or Knight's Horse, and you wouldn't judge it a clever forgery.
What makes the English Pub so authentic is that British proprietor Derek Bennett hires English and Irish staff to service the front, and Chef Dean Milburn exclusively prepares the kind of food you would savor in English taverns. Not a taco or pizza can be found, only traditional British "favourites."
The pub atmosphere is also unerringly accurate. Stroll into this out-of-the-way industrial park location, and you've stepped into a time warp of a 100-plus-year-old bar and restaurant replete with dark oaken beams, low ceilings, and pubby wall hangings of all sorts.
Relish genuine conviviality and hospitality. The English Pub is hopping with happy customers tossing back pints, shooting pool or throwing darts, reveling to one of numerous live musical acts and gobbling up free appetizers.
On our recent Friday visit, a happy hour hostess was carving hot rare roast beef onto sandwiches, free for the taking. Elbow room only make way for some dancing and singing with English DJ Danny Jackson.
On to pub fare ala the United Kingdom! Chef Dean whipped up a hearty Stilton soup, which he prepared without the pungent cheese masking the oniony, flavor-bursting chicken broth base. One of the evening's bargain specials was the fish and chips (two complete dinners for $11.95). A thick slab of fork tender, glistening white cod was generously beer battered with a crisp, non-greasy golden crust over steak cut fries. This English Pub staple is the best in town.
Another special, blackened shrimp pot pie, was a tender crust-covered, piping hot crock of spicy, juicy baby shrimp in a rich sauce of vegetables and mushrooms, served with a side of freshly steamed veggies. Our herbed stuffed rainbow trout was plump and eye-appealing, brimming with tasty dark bread stuffing.
Other dinner choices include liver and onions, old York steak, a rib-eye center in peppercorn sauce, bangers and mash, and Cardiff lamb shank. A daily rotating specials menu includes steak and kidney crumble, or "Toad in the hole," which is banger sausages stuffed into Yorkshire pudding and smothered with ale and onion gravy. Dinners include a choice of soup or salad, and potato.
Derek assured us, "Nobody walks out of here hungry."
We gleefully overstuffed ourselves with rhubarb crumble, Death by Chocolate, and the tavern favorite, sticky toffee pudding.
Enjoy a full English breakfast on Sunday mornings or bottomless British style roast beef or pork Sunday dinner. Britannia rules in East Naples.
Ross and Noreen Edlund have been in the retail food and hospitality business for nearly 30 years. They have owned and operated a chain of pastry shops, a gourmet food, wine and catering store and four restaurants. They travel extensively and have eaten their way through Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and, of course, the United States. The Edlunds can be reached at
rossedlund@msn.com.
©Naples Sun Times 2004
Re-printed by kind permission of Naples Sun Times 
