Month: February 2025

Get the Yorkshire pudding right and you have the difference between a Sunday lunch and a Sunday roast.

 

Which is what you can expect at Hof’s in Henley. Serving over fifty different wines by both the glass or bottle, brakspear cask ales as well as a full range of draught products, a good selection of bottled beers and expertly-served cocktails, this restaurant, cum pub, cum wine bar specialises in a Sunday lunch that is different.

 

A selection of seasonal roasted and steamed vegetables, roast potatoes and their homemade Yorkshire puddings served with a flavoursome gravy and a choice between Jacobs Ladder beef rib or slowly braised crispy pork knuckle.

 

Memorably different.

It was the sign and mention of ‘Sussex Food’ that first caught my eye. That and the impossibly narrow and steep road down to the Royal Oak at Hooksway.

 

It’s different.

 

Not that there is anything particularly different about the menu. Standard contemporary pub food. Pedestrian rather than exotic. Nothing, bar their syrup sponge, really stands out.

But that is what makes it different.

 

Weathered wooden tables in the garden, a perfect setting for an old fashioned Sunday lunch.

 

Followed by that syrup sponge which for some obscure reason I go back for time and again. Memories I suppose.

Out in the sticks. Or to be more precise Inn at the Sticks for one of the best Sunday roasts to be found in the UK.

There is a choice of roast chicken breast wrapped in Carmarthen ham, slow cooked shoulder of Welsh lamb or roast strip loin of Eynon’s beef and Yorkshire pudding,

All served with roast potatoes, Grandma’s stuffing, cauliflower cheese, seasonal vegetables and homemade gravy.

A short walk from the castle, it is situated in the centre of the village of Llansteffan on the Carmarthenshire coast.

Guests can also stay over with three of their rooms being dog friendly.

Well worth making a weekend of it.

Whilst not a carvery one of the best Sunday roasts in a quaint village on the South Coast can be found at the Coal Exchange in Emsworth.

There is nothing particularly special about it other than it is wholesome pub food

And the pudding to follow.

A generous plate of home cooked apple crumble with lashings of cream and a fire in winter.