The Whitebrook

The menu under Chris Harrod is seasonal, using locally produced meat and vegetables. Tasting menu dishes include asparagus which comes from the nearby Wye Valley, while turbot from Cornwall is used.[8] There are foraged items included in the menu, such as hedge bedstraw and pennywort.[5] Charlock is served with crab, while hogweed is used in an asparagus based dish.[9] He uses foams on dishes, including on a Jerusalem artichoke starter comprising caramelized artichokes with goat's curd, trompette mushrooms and Parmigiano-Reggiano.[5]

Another dish which highlights local vegetables is a salt baked turnip side which accompanies duck. Harrod explained "Turnips don't deserve their unloved image, they add a wonderful freshness to a dish."[10] The signature of the restaurant is a suckling pig themed dish, incorporating a pork shoulder which is cooked over two days in a bain-marie, served with shallot and mugwort. This is accompanied by a croquette made from pig's head and a pork cutlet with celeriac, pear, sorrel and cauliflower mushrooms.[4] The restaurant serves breakfast to residents staying in the rooms, which includes Trealy Farm produced sausages and bacon.[5]

Victor Lewis-Smith reviewed the restaurant for The Guardian in 2005, thought that a spring onion risotto accompaniment to a pan fried seabass tasted so good that it would have been sufficient as a main course itself and was also quite pleased that crêpe suzette was served on a trolley for table side service.[22] Claire Ogden visited the restaurant for the Metro newspaper shortly after it was first awarded a Michelin star in 2007. She thought that a John Dory main course was "pristine",[12] and overall thought that the star was well deserved. The only negative thing she had to say about the experience was a toffee foam served on top of a pear granita which she described as "flimsy-flavoured".[12] It was named the best restaurant in Britain by Les Routiers later that year.[23] The critic from the Western Mail stated in 2008 that "the menu is short and to the point, with around five choices for each course. The wine list is huge, an insurmountable challenge for me but another's utopia." However, he remarked that the main course was "genuinely brilliant food" and deserving of its Michelin star.[24]

It was awarded the wine award for Wales by The Automobile Association in 2008.[25] Matthew Fort of The Guardian described its location in 2009, "The Crown is not the easiest place in the world to find. It lies off a narrow lane winding between steepling, canopied hills in an odd corner between Monmouth and Chepstow. In spite of its lost world location, the Crown has been a beacon of gastronomic adventure for at least 30 years – those with long memories will recall Stephen Bull carving out his reputation here."[26] He said of the food, "There is clearly a distinctive palate at work here. In lesser hands, such a meal could be not so much a car crash as a multiple pile-up, but it is not, because the ingredients are handled with originality, assurance and, more importantly, a keen sense of pleasure."[26]

Tony Naylor, writing for The Guardian in 2016, said that the menu featured unusual ingredients which complement each other resulting in "astonishing depths of flavour". But he added that not all dishes were as good as each other, saying that a broccoli amuse-bouche had akin to "a car veering on to a motorway’s rumble strips".[5] The Whitebrook has retained the Michelin star through to 2016,[27] which it first earned under Harrod in 2014.[19]