Bury St Edmunds, British, Modern 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.

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”.

“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.