Bury St Edmunds Restaurant Guide

“A fantastic find. A great welcome. A lovely restaurant”. Zack Deakins’s townhouse is “just outside the main town area” and “with so much excellent competition in the area this is often the only good restaurant with any availability at short notice”. All reports are a hymn of praise to its “prompt and personable” service, its “spacious and comfortable” interior, but most particularly to its “accomplished cuisine”: “inventive combinations of flavours, are skilfully and imaginatively executed and presented elegantly but not over-elaborately”. “Loved it!”

In the “foodie wonderland” that is Bury St Edmunds, an “intimate” and “curiously named” restaurant opened by Justin Sharp and FOH wife Jurga, and specialising in Moorish (should that be more-ish?) cuisine. There was the odd sceptic this year, for whom it “lacks the ‘wow’ factor that one might expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant” (Suffolk’s only star, in fact, which they’ve held onto for five years now), but they were vastly outweighed by fans, who proclaim the venue for “interesting and rather eclectic” food that “reaches out to all the senses” and “never fails to delight”. Top Menu Tip – “a venison moussaka, with venison loin and delica pumpkin. Amazing!”

“What a great find in the middle of Suffolk” – one reporter who visited this “welcoming” outfit in a 400-year-old converted barn amidst the vineyards of the estate “expected an average farm shop experience” only to be “very pleasantly surprised with excellent cooking and a wonderful environment”. The dining room offers modern, locally sourced European cooking – “the set menu is certainly worth a try” and of course “they have their own wines” too (the site’s viticultural history dating back to Roman times). The self-branded ‘creative community’ (indeed, no mere farm shop) also includes a more casual café that was revived in 2024, and a rather beautiful boutique stocking homewares, specialist books and more.

2024 Review: A gloriously situated old watermill set on twelve acres strewn with weeping willows plays host to this venture, juggling a more formal upstairs dining room and casual outdoor hangout Tipi on the Stream, for cocktails and seafood. Chef-owner Lee Bye’s seasonal field-to-fork food is “done to perfection” (with one reporter preferring the à la carte to the tasting menu) and if you want to overnight, the rooms are “fantastic” too.

2024 Review: “Consistently solid gastropub food” earns ratings to match at this well-presented inn from the East Anglian Chestnut Collection of pubs.

“A smartly refurbished inn with dependable, if pricey food and delightful, welcoming staff” – a representative review of this updated pub-with-rooms on the village green: part of the East Anglia-based Chestnut Group.

Village pub near Sudbury relaunched in 2023 after an arty makeover of the interior, with “excellent, unusual burgers” – “some of the best around” – from a trio of friends who developed their ‘Divine’ burger menu at The Vine in Great Bardfield, Essex. They also serve a Yorkshire pudding ‘wrap’ filled with roast beef and pickles.

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”.

2024 Review: “An unexpected delight in Sudbury” – a “lovely old house” with beams plays host to Stéphane Chapotot and Alain Jacq’s “excellent French eatery”, long a local light (and veggie-friendly too); post-pandemic, it has fused with the formerly separate café, and now serves “very well-sourced and presented” breakfasts and lunches, plus more gastronomic dinners on Fri/Sat.

2022 Review: Carl & Beth Shillingford operate out of these converted former stables nowadays (having moved from art venue, The Quay in Sudbury, a few years ago). Food is served from breakfast and then deli-style throughout the day. On certain weekend evenings they bring back the full ‘Shillingford’s’ experience – providing a seasonal menu with many foraged ingredients. Limited but upbeat feedback – “a rustic-feeling place with good, rustic food”.

“Small-but-perfectly-formed restaurant serving small but perfectly formed dishes that are completely sensational” – James & Sophia Carn serve an “always changing seasonal menu” at their two-year-old venue in the town centre, which “improves every time you visit”. Their “small but passionate team” combines “interesting and exquisite food” with “great service” and a real sense of “fun – it would be hard to get more ambience in such a tiny place”. Concerns? – The “smallish” menu can seem limiting and the prices of all those little plates can tot up.

“Popular new addition to Bury St Edmunds” with “well-executed Mediterranean-style small plates” and “spot-on service – they understand how to space out a sharing menu”. It was “set up under the auspices of Régis Crépy”, the veteran chef-restaurateur who used to own the nearby Maison Bleue and the Great House in Lavenham, here in a joint venture with Lamen Reddy.

Aims are high for this April 2025 newcomer, backed by one of the owners of Shoreditch’s The Clove Club, which is centred around a 20 cover chef’s table. It’s run by husband-and-wife duo chef Ruben Aguilar Bel (Petrus, Canvas, Akelarre in San Sebastian) and pastry chef Gabriella Fogarasi (Murano, One Aldwych Hotel), and offers a 6-7 course tasting menu (extended to 10 at weekends) informed by Ruben’s Spanish heritage (Bellota derives from the Spanish word for ‘acorn’). It opened after our diners’ poll had concluded, but in her August 2025 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent declared it one of her top five openings of the year: “there’s something hugely beguiling going on here, and even verging on swaggering”. Everything Grace ate was “fabulous”, from “hot, crisp, truffled croquetas” (“better than many I’ve tasted even in Spain”), via “masterful al dente raviolo… all dressed in a heavenly manchego sauce”, hake with squid ink, and Creedy Carver duck. After only three months it is already getting difficult to book a seat. Top Menu Tip – from Grace’s review: Thai green curry ice-cream with warm pistachio cake and confit apricots. “Yes, you read that right: I did say Thai green curry ice-cream. And, yes, it works. Don’t try this at home, people”.

“A real foodie destination” – a “small room” with open kitchen. “Everyone sits at the same time for the seasonal, largely foraged, 10+ course tasting menu, prepared by the small number of chefs then presented to each table”. At lunch it’s a four course affair. There’s also a cookery school operation that operates at other times out of the premises. “Been many times now and really can’t see why this place has not had wider recognition. Simply feels special”.

“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”.