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The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers

The Duncombe Arms

81/100
  • Ellastone, Staffordshire
  • Modern British gastropub
  • By the glass
  • premium
  • Beta
  • Assessed July 2026
What's this?

These are confidence labels — how sure we are that what we publish still reflects the restaurant's current practice. They are not a judgement on the restaurant; the wine and cooking are scored separately, out of 100.

  • Beta — assessed and scored, but we are still confirming some details (such as the current wine list), so it is published with that caveat.
  • No label — a fully confirmed entry.
  • In development — not yet a review; it appears so you can see where coverage is coming.

Some restaurants change their menus often, and we cannot always keep pace. The date beside the label says when we looked.

We assessed The Duncombe Arms in July 2026 from the menu and wine list as they stood then. Dishes and bottles move on; how to drink well here changes far more slowly. We name bottles from the list we saw and say what to reach for by style, so the advice outlasts the list. Once you are seated, At the Table in the Vinealto app reads the list in front of you.

The Duncombe Arms is a polished modern-British dining pub in rural Staffordshire whose wine list would not look out of place in a serious city restaurant. Its wine programme does something rare: it prints a considered by-the-glass match beneath every course and backs it with a deep, well-travelled cellar and an unusually generous by-the-glass range, so the food and the wine genuinely lift each other. It will reward anyone from a curious first-timer following the printed pairings to a Bordeaux lover heading straight for the Cellar Selection.

The full assessment — the wine programme, the pairings that lift a plate, and how the room reads for a wine lover — is for subscribers.

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More in Staffordshire

58/100 Beta

The Upper House

Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

Modern British hotel restaurant

The Upper House is a family-run hotel restaurant at Barlaston serving a generous, seasonal all-day menu on the edge of Stoke-on-Trent. Its wine list is a considered, award-badged selection with genuine by-the-glass breadth and sound, oak-aware answers to the kitchen's cured-fish and spiced plates, let down only by an absent dessert-and-fortified corner. It will suit a relaxed diner who values a well-chosen glass and easy access over the depth of a specialist cellar.

  • By the glass
  • ££ (mains £14–£19; glasses £6.50–£12.50; bottles £27–£90)
  • Assessed July 2026
Read the assessment

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