Witham Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: You “can’t go wrong” at this stalwart off the A12, where a rendered timbered façade gives way to a conservatory and covered patio. For over two decades it has been turning out traditional and consistent cuisine and, as ever, “the Beef Wellington is the pick of the menu”.

“This beautifully-converted pub” (“miles from anywhere in the Essex countryside, but easy to reach”) is “part of the wider Galvin Bros empire” and offers guests “a choice between the best versions of pub classics or excellent fine dining”, to be consumed “in the bar or restaurant” – “the weekly changing Bib Gourmand menu is excellent value”, while “very welcoming service encourages return visits”. Top Menu Tip – “the duo of fillet steak and slow-cooked beef is very good”.

2024 Review: In a village a short drive outside Chelmsford, this converted sixteenth-century pub has fine countryside views and provides a traditionally comfortable destination, complete with linen tablecloths, candles and cut glass. It wins good all-round feedback (if not a huge volume of reviews) and its modern brasserie fare (with steak, beef Wellington and cote de boeuf to share a highlight) helps it regularly feature in Essex food awards. (Owners Brendan Curran & Justin Mullender are also known for the quality of their put-downs on Tripadvisor!)

“It’s always fun to eat the freshest seafood” at this waterside Mersea Island institution, which lives up to its name, and has a long menu of cold dishes ready to eat and a shorter menu of freshly cooked items (including potatoes sauteed in butter, but not chips). The business has developed over more than 40 years, since Heather & Richard Howard, a seventh-generation oyster fisherman, bought the Tollesbury and Mersea Native Oyster Fishery Company’s former purification shed, built in 1876; it’s now run by their daughter Caz. Top Tip – you can BYOB for a £6 corkage charge, but these days they sell three white wines from the nearby Mersea Island Vineyard by the glass or bottle, along with local beers and a couple of imported reds.

2023 Review: “A good-to-find culinary outpost in an area with few interesting eating spots” – this “welcoming” gastropub is well worth remembering: “a steady hand in the kitchen meets good ingredients, and if food and wine both tread a relatively safe path, it’s no less enjoyable for that”.

“Pizza that just keeps coming by the slice” remains a big hit at this bottomless Neapolitan concept boosted by locals who “simply love the quality of this all-you-can-eat pizza”. The snazzy interior has a “relaxed” vibe too and for parents, “the delicious pizza is simply adored by the kids and it gets them to try new topping combos!”

2024 Review: This “lovely old Essex pub” with a white wooden facade serves food that is “well above average for pub grub” – and its popularity means it “gets overcrowded and noisy” at times. Originally three weavers’ cottages from 1460, the building was converted two centuries later using beams salvaged from naval vessels docked at Tilbury. Top Menu Tip – “the skate wing is delicious”.

Surprise! Paul Wendholt announced the closure of his tiny operation ‘in the heart of Colchester town centre in the shadow of a multi storey car park’, only in August to dub 2025 ‘The Year of the U-Turn’ with reopening announced in September. The format is little-changed: there’s a full seven-course tasting menu for £90 per person, with a short one for £65 available all week except Saturday evenings. Our diners will be pleased: they say, “this restaurant has had a consistently high standard since it first opened in 2016 as Grain. Their tasting menu is delicious from course to course with lovely combinations of flavours. Service is friendly and knowledgeable”.

Upping sticks from Broadstairs in Kent, Ben & Sophie Crittenden opened this transplanted venue on Mersea Island with just 20 covers in summer 2024, with Ben as chef and Sophie front of house. They serve a £100 per person tasting menu, and initial feedback is of “lovely, perfectly seasoned food in a rural setting providing an excellent overall experience”. In her February 2025 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent also declared herself a fan, applauding “punchily flavoured pieces of art” ending with a final dish “quite unlike anything I‘ve ever been served”. One reporter did have “a few minor gripes: the main dish of Wagyu Beef could have benefitted from a carbohydrate and some vegetables… that said we will be back and it will be soon!”