THE STONEMASON'S ARMS, HAMMERSMITH

Last week something weird happened. Two weird things actually. I discovered somewhere to eat in Hammersmith that is a) better than good and b) I hadn't previously discovered (I've lived near Hammersmith for more than five years now). This makes me happy, but also sad that I've only just discovered it now. The Stonemasons Arms is a five minute walk from Hammersmith station, towards Ravenscourt Park and is part of the Fullers group. It's a cosy pub - a real pub with uneven wooden floorboards, a big bar, local and guest beers, a ridiculously good wine list, and the food is phenomenal. Having spotted pictures of their food on Gary's Instagram I followed up on an invite from Fullers to review one of their pubs and headed to The Stonemasons Arms with Julie for a Wednesday evening catch up over some serious food and wine.

There's an evening set menu (£23 for courses or £29 for three - you'll want three) with wine suggestions for each dish, or a la carte. We mixed it up between the two menus, choosing carefully so we could sample as much as possible. Before our chosen starters we were presented with an "amuse bouche" of charred sweetcorn, cylinders of confit potato, paprika popcorn and tarragon, all brought together by a delicious homemade mayo. With a pouch of warm bread and caramel butter things were off to a very good start, and we hadn't even properly started.

Starters proper continued the theme of extremely good food. My smoked duck breast with roast, pickled and powdered beetroot and charred goat's cheese was sublime. The flavours were spot on and I loved that the duck was served as a whole piece, and not pre-sliced. It was excellent with the beetroot and cheese, particularly with a slither of the pickled version.

Julie's dish of cured salmon canneloni filled with salmon mousse with cucumber, wasabi and apple was a stunning plate of food and equally as tasty as it looked. The wines paired throughout the meal complimented the food perfectly.

I'd already seen the main course I knew I wanted on the pub's Instagram page. From the a la carte menu I had venison, pearl barley, beetroot and blackberries. The rare fillet of venison was expertly cooked and sat on top of creamy pearl barley laced with bits of slow cooked, pulled venison.

Julie went set menu and had the roast duck breast, confit potatoes, frisee, carrots, walnuts and black cherry vinegar. Another winner. I would say clean plates all round but our many courses of food were catching up with us so we couldn't quite finish our mains, even though we wanted to. Because we had to save a bit of space for something rather special looking that I'd seen online....

HOMEMADE SNICKERS!! Oh yes. Coming from the girl who "doesn't eat puddings" you know that it's good if I ate it. Soft caramel, crunchy nuts, melty chocolate, served with the smoothest Laverstoke buffalo milk ice cream, which I now want to try and make at home.

I know I sound like I'm gushing, but I really can't fault anything at The Stonemasons Arms. Service was very friendly and helpful (they knew I was invited, but it seemed to be the same service level for everyone), it's a cosy, warm, welcoming pub, the food is ridiculously good, the wine almost even better and it's so close to where I live!!!! Prices are quite high, for a pub, but excellent value for what you get. Mains range from £11.50 for the burger (which we saw a guy order who then proceeded to eat every single chip on his plate before touching the burger.....?!?!?) to £25 for the venison. The set menu is even better value and I would quite happily choose from the selection of dishes on that.

I can't wait to go back and while away weekend afternoons, weekday evenings and any other appropriate pub times in my new favourite. I'm chuffed to bits to have finally found this place!