The Northgate

Northgate Street, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 1HP

Tel: 01284 339604

Website: www.thenorthgate.com

Type of Restaurant / Type of Food

All day dining from full English breakfast, a morning bacon sandwich, a light lunch or a brasserie style menu in the evening, using local ingredients prepared to the highest standards.

REVIEW

It was our 40th wedding anniversary back in May and as a lovely treat our kids gave us a voucher for £100 to go to one of the Chestnut Group of Restaurants. They have five restaurants in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. We had seen some good reports about The Northgate and thought it would be something really special. With no change from the voucher we had to spend the whole £100 so we sat down and planned our meal by looking at the menu online happy to spend a bit more if necessary. To be quite honest the website wasn’t as easy to navigate as we would have anticipated and when we did find the menu for the evening it was interesting but not as extensive as we expected. We were able to identify what we didn’t want easier than what we wanted.

Our son dropped us off and our daughter was our taxi service home so we didn’t have to be careful with the drinks. They were busy at the restaurant and there was a buzz about the place. The sort of place that you would use as a first date to impress your partner. The only thing we didn’t like was that we felt a little pressure to go to our table straight away which we didn’t want to do. We both ordered a glass of dry English Sparkling wine (£7 per glass) from Tuffon Hall and sat in the conservatory area to scan the menu. After ordering we moved to the table in the main restaurant area, an impressive room right at the front looking out to Northgate Street

Gladys ordered Suffolk Pork Belly (£8) as a starter which she enjoyed while I had the Foie Gras (£9). For the main course she ordered Black Bream with lovely spices on a bed of lentils (£19.50). I had, what looking back at it, was one of the most expensive 8oz Rib Eye steak that I have ever had plus green peppercorn (£27) served with skin on fries, roasted shallot, and watercress and tomato oil. It was what you would expect from a steak, medium rare that melted in the mouth.

To accompany the main course we went for a bottle of the white Rioja “Don Placero” (£19.50) which we found very drinkable

We thought we would share the cheese board which was the wrong choice as I had really expected more cheese. I even ordered a glass of Gamay Noir Jean to accompany the cheese board in anticipation. But the petit portion, a selection of hard rind, soft & ewes cheeses, malt loaf, truffled honey and tomato chutney (£10) wasn’t really enough for one person let alone two and we both found the addition of honey on a cheese board quite strange. This was just a poor choice by us because the menu selection for sweets was very good.

The service was excellent the delivery of food at the right pace and the manager came over to enquire of our experience and Gladys did mention the cheese board. The atmosphere was really nice with quite a young feel, although our neighbours and some friends were dining on the next table. It is an impressive restaurant but one of the lasting memories is that the waiters and waitresses were wearing jeans and tee-shirts which didn’t really fit in with the style of the place.

Overall we had a really nice time and enjoyed our anniversary treat

BILL £113 (Less our £100 voucher) Total to pay £13 plus tip