It may be winter outside, but Long Ditton’s Plough & Harrow has unveiled a seasonal menu to banish the chill, with a centrepiece souffle main course (above) that is simply outstanding.

The Ditton Hill Road pub/restaurant’s January listings, launched last week, give the chefs licence to push the boundaries with new dishes, serve fresh takes on old favourites and make some bold tweaks to familiar staples.

It looks like 2025 will be the year of the souffle. It’s now possible to go the whole hog and have a souffle starter, a souffle main course and a souffle pud at the restaurant… and there’s a 50% discount on mains until Feb if you use a code on the website.

The guinea fowl en croute comes with caramelised apple slices

In all there are nine menu changes, including a delicious guinea fowl en croute starter with cranberry chutney; French game encased in puff pastry with girolle mushrooms and slices of caramelised apple. A very good choice.

New to the main course list is free-range bangers with bubble & squeak. The pork, leek and black pepper sausages are award-winners from Jimmy Butler’s farm in Suffolk, and come served with bubble, cabbage and mustard sauce; a proper winter warmer.

But don’t overlook the roast pheasant supreme, served with dauphinoise potato and sauteed pumpkin, or the hearty Cornish beef and ale pie – a classic well worth teaming up with creamed spinach.

However, it’s souffle year, and you should really consider going straight for Grand Souffle on the menu (£18.50); a monumental structure encasing a rich mushroom and smoked Cheddar interior, accompanied by a jug of pour-over truffle, cheese and chive sauce. It comes with crisp green beans and mixed leaf salad (the only part of the meal that looked tired, and wasn’t actually needed).

The cheese used in the souffle is from Quicke’s artisan farm in Devon, smoked with oak chips from trees on the estate, and the flavour means that ‘grand’ label is fully earned.

All gone! The new main course souffle with smoked Cheddar and accompanying truffle and chive sauce is a triumph

The Plough & Harrow’s starter menu includes a small cheese souffle, a filling French onion soup with croutons and a new Jerusalem artichoke and leek salad, scattered with crushed hazelnuts and garnished with walnut ketchup and truffle mustard dressing.

It’s an excellent vegan choice, although the powerful dressings are certainly needed to add flavour to the oh-so-subtle artichoke chunks. If you’re a meat eater, that rich guinea fowl pastry is undoubtedly the winner, with the apple slices adding a smoky sweetness and the ‘blob’ of cranberry working well with the dish.

Wash it down with a hearty Bordeaux. The Plough’s house French is a plummy 14% Chateau Tour de Luchey – £22 for a carafe, or £10.30 a glass.

There are other tweaks to the menu. For example, the winter version of the roast cod fillet main course now comes with an intense curry sauce.

On the dessert front, there’s a caramel combo, a Yorkshire rhubarb trifle (with honeycomb scattering, cream layers and light custard) and a mix of ice cream scoops. But if you’re in for a penny you may as well be in for a pound on the souffle front. The lighter-than-air pistachio souffle, with icing sugar dusting, comes with a wodge of chocolate ice cream to round off any meal in style.

If you’re going down the souffle route, why not push the boat out and have the pistachio souffle pud as well?

So by all means launch your evening with bar snacks and nibbles as you browse the menu at the bar over a pint, or a Martini (incidentally, just twists of lemon zest, no olives), and tuck in to a starter when you get to the table. But do not deny yourself the full-on winter souffle experience!

We’re lucky to have the Plough & Harrow as a classy local eating venue after witnessing its impressive resurrection from the defunct George Evelyn pub and its subsequent £3m conversion and integration into the Heartwood Inns family. Even when the temperatures are plunging outside, the first-class service and enjoyable buzz make it a good choice for banishing the winter blues.

The Plough & Harrow, Ditton Hill Road, Long Ditton

Reservations at 020 3084 8444, or via the website’s table-booking system at ploughandharrowlongditton.com Open all day from noon, with last sittings at around 9pm.