Stowmarket Restaurant Guide

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”.

“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.

“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.

“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!”

“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!”

“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.

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”.

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).

“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”.

“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”.

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”.

“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.

“Great Italian food – in the middle of Suffolk!” (“there’s no better pasta in the UK”) comes as a surprise to visitors who don’t know the “famous owners” are TV’s ‘Hotel Inspector’ Ruth Watson, her husband Dave and chef Rob Walpole. “Service is always sweet and efficient” and “the prices seem very fair as well”. Top Menu Tip – “it’s one of the only places outside of London to do zucchini fritti perfectly!”