Midhurst, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “Fabulous country food” (hefty and satisfying) is the order of the day at chef-patron Simon Goodman’s hillside sixteenth century boozer, which these days profits from a proper dining area and, as ever, an “amazing garden” overlooking Leith Hill, the highest point in Surrey.

2022 Review: Current owners The Epicurean Collection – behind a string of boutique pubs and inns – have a hit on their hands with this award-winning venture: a “worthy addition to an area generously supplied with high-quality country pubs”. The rolling South Downs beyond the windows inform much of the “imaginative menu”, with a particular accent on introducing non-shooting folk to game (the latter courtesy of the local Goodwood Estate).

2022 Review: “The food is excellent, and you’re made to feel welcome” at this showcase for the produce of the Goodwood Estate, an early convert to organic farming (although Lord March, the Duke of Richmond, is better known as a petrol-head). “They’ve turned the courtyard into a lovely space”, and the highlight of the menu is the ‘butcher’s board’ sharing selection of various meat cuts.

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.

2021 Review: “A definite must-visit” – “an amazing small gastropub next to a beautiful pond”, on the Goodwood Estate, and with a line in “tasty and flavoursome” victuals (including game).

2023 Review: The view (towards Goodwood) from the window is said to have inspired William Blake’s anthem, Jerusalem, in 1803, but the current future is uncertain at this eighteenth-century coaching inn, which shut its doors in early October 2022. We await news of the new incarnation of this vantagepoint over ‘England’s green and pleasant land’.

2021 Review: Celeb MasterChef contestant Jodie Kidd (better known as a 1990s supermodel) has proved the cynics wrong at this fifteenth century venue, which she relaunched in summer 2017; the worst anyone has to say is that it’s “nice enough but nothing to rush back for”, while fans had a “most enjoyable experience at this village pub”.

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”.

“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 luxury hotel restaurant in a semi-ruined medieval castle (complete with portcullis) is part of the Andrew Brownsword group, and certainly makes for a “wonderfully romantic” destination. “The dining room is situated upstairs in the castle” – replete with a rare barrel-vaulted ceiling – so may not be good for the mobility-impaired, “but the staff are obliging” and the food “good” (if not exceptional).

2021 Review: “Utterly consistent and fabulous” – chef Lee Williams “never lets you down” at his restaurant-with-rooms in a Regency house looking out over Arundel Castle. Its talking-point is the “beautiful gold-leaf ceiling” in the dining room, which was made in Florence in the sixteenth century. Local seafood is the star on a “delicious” menu (“especially when fresh lobster is in season”).

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.

2022 Review: Sailor-turned-entrepreneur Ed Collison set up his popular venue at Emsworth yacht basin at the age of 21 in 2016, serving everything from £4.50 bacon breakfast rolls to a splash-out seafood platter for two at £120 a pop. During lockdown he launched a fleet of silver catering vans, and in November 2021 announced a new branch of the Deck, replacing the Boat House Café, at Gosport marina.

“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.

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.

2023 Review: This “excellent South Downs destination in a picture-perfect village” – “with fine, restaurant-quality cooking” from chef Jesse Bryson (ex-Noble Rot and Leroy) – “is flourishing for good reason”. The stone-built seventeenth-century pub was taken over in 2020 by Angus Davies, a former manager at Chez Bruce and Lorne.