Newark Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: Adebola Adeshina (ex-Gordon Ramsay) left London to set up this restaurant in a Grade II-listed thatched pub. Fans say that this fine diner is “very romantic” and “superb all round” – while, for the odd critic, “dishes are picture perfect but tastes lack follow-through”. PS – Adeshina has now developed the open space behind the pub into a casual summer lunch spot, The Yard.

“Interesting, contemporary, fun and welcoming” – this attractive hotel just off the A1 near Peterborough had a major re-launch in 2022 and its main dining room in a converted orangery wins praise from locals for “one of the best tasting menus around and a beautiful room”. “There was a recent change of head chef” (it’s now Rikki Hughes at the stoves) “but the quality is still top notch” with an affordable a la carte ‘entry’ option at £45 per person, and an eight-course menu of real ambition for £95 per person.

Dating back over 1,000 years (although rebuilt many times in the interim), this marvellously grand coaching inn is “a truly wonderful institution that helps define Stamford”. “One may eat in the glorious setting of the courtyard on fine summer days, or in one of several other sites inside”, not least its “historic panelled Oak Room” (to which this review relates). “None of the food is at the pointed end of modern cooking”, being “of the gleaming trolley of roast beef and whole Dover sole mode” (or else of the “fabulous afternoon tea” mode), but – while it’s most definitely “on the pricey side” – this is arguably the kind of old-school rarity that “should be treasured” (and if you’re at all price conscious, the “good value set lunch” is the way to go). Former owner Lawrence Hoskins – whose legacy lives on in the “very decent wine list” – passed away in 2023, having celebrated 50 years at the helm just a few months earlier.

2024 Review: Celebrating its 10th year, this “very lively option with good cooking on Oundle Wharf” is “now a stalwart of the local dining scene”, with an “interesting menu that showcases local produce” – and “the beers are not too bad either, being brewed next door” at the Nene Valley brewery.

A “lovely Italian restaurant” in this attractive town, where “the menu is fairly standard (antipasti, pizzas, tasty pastas) but the quality is high”, and there’s “absolutely delightful service” to wash it down. Even those who have “eaten here many, many times” find it “unfailingly good in all regards – food, service, ambience and pricing”. They also run a next-door deli if you fall in love with their ingredients and want to take them and cart them off to your casa.

Opened in 2020 and now a firm part of the Stamford scene, Oliver & Joseph Regis’s quirky venue is a “delightful, if slightly cramped, space” in one of the town’s gorgeous 16th-century buildings, where Dameon Clarke (ex-of Rywell’s ‘Wicked Witch’) oversees the “well-accomplished food” – be it the small plates available in the bar or the relaxed fine-dining menu on offer by night.