A few weekends ago I visited Norwich for a couple of days and discovered a great gastropub called The Reindeer. Owned by a brother and sister team, Dan and Kate, and headed up by Michelin-trained chef Simon Walton, the pub serves modern British food in an informal, unpretentious environment.
The pub and kitchen celebrates a back-to-basics style of cooking: making everything in house, sourcing seasonal produce from suppliers across the country from local foragers in North Norfolk to meats cured in Dorset and making use of rare cuts of meat (lamb's tongue, ox cheek and duck heart, anyone?) in simple, delicious dishes for lunch or dinner.
The Reindeer serves a selection of over 20 beers from around the world, although I'm not really a pint kinda girl so chose a nice bottle of white Rioja. We started with some warm, freshly-baked bread and butter, then some delicious mussels, freshly caught in Brancaster on the Norfolk coast and served in a moppable white wine and tomato broth and a tasty quarter dozen of fresh oysters.
For mains we had the wild mushroom, spinach and goats cheese wellington which was outstanding - creamy but not too rich - and the game pie baked with pheasant and partridge inside, along with some chunky cut triple cooked chips.
The service was great and our friendly waitress answered a couple of questions about the more unusual dishes on offer. The portions are man-sized, so there was no room for dessert, but if the starters and mains were anything to go by, I assume the various pudding options wouldn't disappoint... There’s also a bar snack menu of 12-15 British tapas-style plates if you're only peckish.
Viva la British food revolution! Check out the autumn menu and if you're in East Anglia, I certainly recommend a visit. We then walked it off round the pretty city centre...
