The Black Swan - Alnwick

I visited The Black Swan a while ago. I kind of liked it there and wasn't disappointed with the food. I especially enjoyed the decor and the vibe of the place. The options were rather limited, though, and it's worrying what the other comment says about them possibly frying veggie and meat stuff together. Updated from previous review on 2023-03-26

It technically has quite a few vegan options but server warned me that everything is fried in the same oil e.g. chips and meat Overall food was pretty bland and in my view not worth the price.

I was hoping for the deep fried cheese bites described in a previous review but these are no longer on the menu. They had quite a range of options though, including a burger pizza , and Japanese style curry. Unfortunately most of the vegan options weren 't available on the day we visited so I had a vegan margarita pizza, and asked for them to put mushrooms on it. It was a good size, and had vegan cheese on it. It was also a shame that they didn 't offer any plant milks the best we could have in the way of hot drinks was black coffee or black tea, which was a shame on a cold day! Nice interior in the restaurant though, and friendly staff.

The pub staff are friendly and the atmosphere is good. There are normally a good amount of vegan options on the menu. Unfortunately when we visited they hadnt recieved their delivery for many of these options. However the chef said they had some vegan fish fingers delivered and would make us a vegan fish finger sandwich. It's a sign of a good chef when they can whip something up. Hopefully next time they'll have all of their options available as they sounded excellent.

My wife and I were starving on the Northumberland coast (known for its kippers and crab sandwiches, but not its vegan options) so we popped into Alnwick and happened to walk past the Black Swan. It is an old pub, with an interesting building and clearly popular with locals. We were looking for food around 5pm, which was lucky as the place was fully booked later (reduced capacity during COVID-19). We were pleased to see more than one vegan option on the menu. I had deep fried vegan cheese to start with, which was delicious and just the right size. Both my wife and I had the courgetti bolognese (spag bol with spaghetti made from courgette) for the mains. This was a generous size with a real depth of flavour. Both started and main course arrived super quickly with no-nonsense service. The pub had COVID safety measures in place, with Perspex between tables.