Two Windsor pubs make the finals of Great British Pub Awards

Two Windsor pubs have become finalists for the Great British Pub Awards 2025 – known in the trade as ‘the Oscars of the pub industry’.

One finalist is The Loch & The Tyne in Old Windsor, owned by Adam Handling, a chef and restaurateur whose establishments have won awards for their sustainability.

As such, it is not surprising that the restaurant and pub is up for the Best Sustainable Pub award category.

It has a garden where it grows fruits, vegetables and herbs, as well as an orchard, and also makes good use of the ‘waste’ from food preparation.

For example, it uses apple peelings to make cocktails, mint stems rather than just the leaves, and makes date syrup from what is left over from trimmed dates, ensuring little is wasted.

Justine Miller, beverage manager at the pub, said they will also ‘not take on any animal’ for meat unless they can use all of it.

The Loch & The Tyne also uses sustainable producers, serves only line-caught fish, reduces carbon footprint on deliveries, uses linen napkins instead of paper then launders them in-house, and 90 per cent of its wines are sustainable.

Part of The Loch & The Tyne’s ethos involves talking people through the source of their food.

“Guests seem to really love it,” said Justine. “I’m [also] just so in love with the place.

“We’re taking this beautiful bounty that nature gives to us and preparing it in this sustainable but luxurious style of dining.

“One of the reasons I wanted to work here is because of that ethos and looking after a beautiful planet.”

Meanwhile, over in Clewer, a popular community pub – and former winner – is once again up for Best Community Pub.

The Swan hosts 25 clubs and groups, ranging from one woman that teaches people French to the Windsor Ukulele Band.

It is home to the Windsor Cycle Hub, which fixed bikes for free and takes people out on guided rides every Saturday.

The Swan also offered a new home to the Warhammer group after the Warhammer shop in town closed.

It runs the Chatty Cafe group, which started off a couple of years ago with three people and now ‘fills the entire pub’.

This is aimed at people who perhaps do not get out much and want to make friends.

Perhaps most notably, it has a Sixth Form college on site – The Green Room School for pupils who can no longer access mainstream education.

Students run the pub every Thursday from 11am-2.30pm for ‘Epic Thursday’. The Swan team give them bar and barista training.

Pupils also do a Green Canteen once a month, in which they operate the kitchen and serve guests from 5-8.30pm.

This gives the youngsters the training they need to move into higher education or enter a hospitality job.

Micky Foden-Andrews, general manager, said: “Everything that we do is for the community. As much as we need to turn a profit so we can keep the lights on, [that’s] my main goal.

“If there’s something that the community want to do, we’ll do it – within reason.”

Micky said The Swan is hoping for another win – or failing that, just ‘the publicity to say that we are one of the best community pubs.’

“If that’s what keeps people coming through the doors, then we’ve done our jobs,” he said.

For the competition, finalists faced a mystery visit about six weeks ago and a friendly grilling with ‘brilliant questions’ in the interview stage.

Now, all will be heading to Leeds on September 24 to find out how they fared.