Review on Butley-Orford Oysterage
'A dining experience for fish lovers not to be missed,' enthused one Mobile Food Guide user. Opened in the mid-60s, the Pinney family's vintage seafood café still stakes its reputation on locally bred oysters and incomparable smoked fish (cured in the smokehouse next to the beds at Butley Creek).
Oysters appear 'au naturel', in a soup, as a cocktail with tomato juice and wrapped in bacon as 'angels on horseback'; otherwise the regular menu offers smoked eel on toast, smoked mackerel with mustard sauce, pork and cockle stew and wondrous smoked wild Irish salmon.
In addition there are daily specials, depending on the catch from the owners' boats: baked sea bass ('unadulterated by sauces') has been recommended by our reporter. Desserts are as simple as everything else (treacle tart, lemon syllabub, for example) and there are some zingy whites on the affordable wine list.
Tacked onto the restaurant is a shop where you can buy lots of fresh and smoked goodies to take home. Expect crowds and queues during the Aldeburgh Festival and throughout the summer holidays; it's quieter during the winter months - but note the restricted opening times.
Butley-Orford Oysterage is also featured in: Good Food Guide, Hardens
Rate this RestaurantCuisine
Seafood
Restaurant Opening Times
Lunch: 12.00 - 2.15pm
Dinner: 6.30 - 9.00pm Wed-Sat (Mon-Sun Jun-mid Sept; Fri-Sat Nov-mid Mar)
Accepted credit cards
Visa, Master Card