Thetford Restaurant Guide

“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.

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 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!”

“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”.