Manningtree Restaurant Guide

“Utterly reliable”, with “a great choice of fish and seafood cooked in a variety of ways” – “this is a go-to restaurant, and there’s nothing like it close by”, say fans of Californian chef Sherri Singleton’s former village coaching inn (with rooms), which she has run for more than two decades. She also has a cooking school on site and an Italian restaurant, Enoteca Lucca, in nearby Manningtree.

“Great cooking… a welcoming, warming atmosphere… an ever-changing menu” – there’s plenty to love about this “gorgeous traditional coaching inn” set in prime Constable Country, and with a distinctive yellow façade. There was praise this year for the “well-priced” seafood, as well as the “delightful” service, and it’s “also worth a shout-out to the excellent range of local beers”. Owner Piers Baker, who has shepherded the venue for two decades, is also behind Church Street Tavern in Colchester and, as of 2022, The White Hart Inn on Mersea Island.

2024 Review: This attractive hotel in Constable Country is “a very pleasant place to eat”, owing to its terraced gardens and “good basic bistro food” (“plus it’s always open”, which doesn’t hurt). Service is not always a highpoint though, and can be “slow”.

A “beautiful setting” on the banks of the River Stour in the unspoilt heart of Constable Country is the making of this well-known half-timbered venue – these days a spa hotel and restaurant owned by East Anglia’s Milsom Hotels group. As is so often the case here, opinion divides sharply on the merits of its cuisine, with some diners enjoying an “excellent meal” with “noteworthy service”, while others complain of “very average and expensive food” and “service which doesn’t live up to its former excellence”. Local superstar Ed Sheeran made a surprise appearance last summer, singing a three-song acoustic set in a marquee on the lawn at the launch of the Lentonbrook Foundation, a new charity to help children and families in Suffolk.

“Old fashioned, with understated service and great ambience” – this impressive Grade I listed property dates from 1440 and was once the HQ to 1970s TV chef Robert Carrier, who restored it in the early 1970s. There’s a wide range of à la carte, tasting and afternoon tea menus, all in a traditional mould and all at relatively affordable prices.

2023 Review: In the heart of Constable Country, this gastropub with rooms is “a busy venue with a good atmosphere and friendly service”. Foodwise, it’s praised for cooking that’s “outstanding” at the “very reasonable price”; and wine lovers are well-catered for too, with 250 bins (they also run their own merchants).

This “very popular gastropub/hotel in a pretty village” was taken over and lavishly revamped by new owners a few years ago, and “the conversion of an old building is very well done (down to the super WCs!)”, making it a most “attractive” spot for a meal. Chef Matthew Hurry oversees the French-ish cooking, which ranges from fish Fridays to “outstanding” desserts. Reflecting comments in previous surveys, there was praise this year for the “very reasonably priced set menu – £26 for two courses, £34 for three – considering the quality”.

“Consistent in every way and always a favourite” – the Trong family’s traditional Chinese venture has been a culinary mainstay of the town for nigh on three decades. “It is worth asking them to bring you some dishes without looking at the menu! It’s never disappointing!”

This small mid-Victorian hotel on the historic Harwich waterfront, overlooking the twin estuaries of the Stour and Orwell, wins solid ratings for its seafood-focused restaurant. It is part of the regional Milsoms’ group (flagship: The Talbooth at Dedham).

2023 Review: This half-timbered fifteenth-century former coaching inn is a “reliable venue for good food”, with a menu that ticks boxes all the way from basic cheeseburger or beer-battered hake ’n’ chips to more original offerings such as goat cheese doughnut with beetroot sugar and a flexible selection of dishes available in two sizes – as either starters or mains. Top Tip – “the great lobster Caesar salad”.

“It’s always fun to eat the freshest seafood” at this waterside Mersea Island institution, which lives up to its name, and has a long menu of cold dishes ready to eat and a shorter menu of freshly cooked items (including potatoes sauteed in butter, but not chips). The business has developed over more than 40 years, since Heather & Richard Howard, a seventh-generation oyster fisherman, bought the Tollesbury and Mersea Native Oyster Fishery Company’s former purification shed, built in 1876; it’s now run by their daughter Caz. Top Tip – you can BYOB for a £6 corkage charge, but these days they sell three white wines from the nearby Mersea Island Vineyard by the glass or bottle, along with local beers and a couple of imported reds.

Surprise! Paul Wendholt announced the closure of his tiny operation ‘in the heart of Colchester town centre in the shadow of a multi storey car park’, only in August to dub 2025 ‘The Year of the U-Turn’ with reopening announced in September. The format is little-changed: there’s a full seven-course tasting menu for £90 per person, with a short one for £65 available all week except Saturday evenings. Our diners will be pleased: they say, “this restaurant has had a consistently high standard since it first opened in 2016 as Grain. Their tasting menu is delicious from course to course with lovely combinations of flavours. Service is friendly and knowledgeable”.

“Next door to the Alma Inn, a great new place in Old Harwich offering a monthly changing small tasting menu at exceptionally good value prices”. That’s an early verdict (too limited feedback, though, as yet for a rating) on this early 2024 newcomer, where you sample an unhurried, six-course tasting menu of flame-grilled fish and meat for £55 per person.

Upping sticks from Broadstairs in Kent, Ben & Sophie Crittenden opened this transplanted venue on Mersea Island with just 20 covers in summer 2024, with Ben as chef and Sophie front of house. They serve a £100 per person tasting menu, and initial feedback is of “lovely, perfectly seasoned food in a rural setting providing an excellent overall experience”. In her February 2025 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent also declared herself a fan, applauding “punchily flavoured pieces of art” ending with a final dish “quite unlike anything I‘ve ever been served”. One reporter did have “a few minor gripes: the main dish of Wagyu Beef could have benefitted from a carbohydrate and some vegetables… that said we will be back and it will be soon!”

“A gem of a pub/restaurant in a pretty Suffolk village” – this 14th-century inn serves some “absolutely delicious” dishes on menus that range from a £25 set lunch, via à la carte, to a £90 per person tasting menu – and is “always very busy at weekends” (“excellent Sunday lunch”). In his March 2025 Telegraph review, William Sitwell was bowled over by a “staggeringly good” Herefordshire beef pie – “literally the finest I can remember eating” – while others rate the “fantastic Scotch eggs”.