Chichester, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This 200-year-old local pub at the foot of the South Downs is “well run and popular”, with a “well-executed and great-value menu” of superior gastropub fare.

It’s “a little old-fashioned”, but that does little to dent the appeal of Viv Casson’s “lovely” restaurant, a short drive from the Goodwood Estate; the venue celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2023, and whether you go for the Sunday lunch or regular themed dinners, it “delivers on efficiency and solidly good food”.

“Satisfyingly simple and unpretentious” – the verdict on Lawrence & Julia Murphy’s long-running (est. 2000) and “rustic” venture in a cute, seventeenth-century fisherman’s cottage, on the road down to the quay; the “varied menu” features “plenty of fresh fish, beautifully prepared and served” and coming “at a reasonable price” to boot.

In 2019, locally born chef Gary Pearce and his wife Martyna took over this well-established restaurant-with-rooms right on Emsworth harbour from Ramon & Karen Farthing, who had developed it into one of the South Coast’s better-known dining options over two decades. Gary’s “complex and innovative cooking” – honed in top kitchens including Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and Belgium’s De Wulf – scored consistently well this year, if on somewhat limited feedback.

“What a lovely setting” – on a hilltop in the South Downs National Park – for a “very typical ‘Pig’”: Robin Hutson’s well-known litter of shabby-chic hotels (now sold to private equity). At almost two acres, the kitchen garden enables “a good exhibition of farm-to-fork”, although the most critical diners feel “the cooking is not particularly interesting or exciting (possibly because it has been replicated by so many)”. There’s a “great list of Sussex and Kent wines”, soon to be joined by bottles from the estate’s own vines – a ‘Pig’ first – and a herd of South Downs sheep.

This “charmingly higgledy-piggledy venue” may look like it springs from medieval times, but was in fact created in 1927, when a member of the Guinness brewing family commissioned it from an antiquarian and architect. Nowadays it sprawls over thirty acres leading to the coastline, replete with numerous houses and cottages offering accommodation, a hotel and spa, and a dining room with tapestry-hung walls, where diners can enjoy a solid menu based on Sussex produce.

Launched in 2015 after a stellar career (Claridge’s, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, many a high-end Canadian hotel), Lee (& FOH wife Liz) Parsons’ small indie is a real local “favourite” that inspires many comments in our annual diners’ poll (booking is thus essential) focussing on “exquisite fresh ingredients whose combinations tantalise the tastebuds”. The “great-value set lunch” merits investigation, and “fish is the outstanding choice” as always.

Four miles from Chichester, and bordering the South Downs National Park, this 200-year-old pub-with-rooms is part proper boozer (upfront) and part tastefully arty restaurant offering ambitious gastrofare. Reporters this year praised the “warm ambience” and a “treat” of a menu that features some “standout courses” such as scallops and venison.