Review on Anchor Inn
The yellow-brick Anchor Inn by a bridge over the River Stour isn't difficult to spot. Once a place where press gangs recruited their 'volunteers', it's now a relaxed, convivial hostelry with a delightfully cosy bar, a boldly decorated upstairs restaurant and a riverside deck for fine days.
Much of the produce used in the kitchen comes from the owners' Heritage Farm (next to the pub) – so you might be offered steaks from English Longhorn beef, rare breed lamb, Norfolk Black turkey, and Saddleback or Gloucester Old Spot pork, plus pickings from the kitchen garden. The result is a menu that promises poached duck egg with a puff pastry 'cage', rolled fillet of suckling pig with spring greens and Calvados jus, or kid curry with pilau rice and onion bhajia, as well as puddings ranging from pancakes with banana and caramel sauce to pannacotta with rhubarb compote.
The Anchor also has its own smokehouse, tucked round the back, producing smoked salmon, haddock, mackerel and trout for fish platters, treacle bacon for a hefty lunchtime 'huffer' (a home-baked triangular bread roll), as well as venison, duck, pigeon – even tomatoes and mushrooms. East Anglian real ales are on handpump and there are wines from award-winning Carter's Vineyards nearby.
Cuisine
Gastro pub
Restaurant Opening Times
Lunch: 12.00 - 2.30pm (3.00pm Sat & 6.00pm Sun)
Dinner: 6.00 - 9.00pm Mon-Fri (6.00 - 9.30pm Sat)
Accepted credit cards
Visa, Master Card