This reinvented local has much to commend it – the menu is ambitious, the service cheerful – but some aspects may anchor it firmly in the category of ‘family pub’
The Drumming Snipe sits on the outskirts of Woking, an area where I’ve not eaten in any meaningful sense for more than four decades, and even then it was probably a Curly Wurly from the Naafi shop. Back then, my father was stationed at Aldershot Garrison, roughly 11 miles cross-country from this newly re-loved, rather gargantuan pub formerly known as The Mayford Arms. Whenever I pass though this part of England, I think of 70s treats: a Lyons Maid Zoom lolly slurped at Farnborough airshow, Bird’s trifle for the Silver Jubilee buffet and a bag of Frazzles while watching Shaw Taylor on Police Five.
This is not, to my memory, a part of the world where cods’ tongues, celeriac fritters or cuttlefish bolognese feature on any “pub grub” menu; or cockerel with gizzard sauce or kid goat rack, for that matter. But The Drumming Snipe is a very modern type of gastropub, doing everything that large pubs in out-of-the-way locations have to do these days to thrive.
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