Ship

New team doing good food in prettily set old inn, relaxed and informal

By no means smart, this easy-going place is well worth knowing for its food, and good on the drinks side, too: Harveys Best and guests like Dark Star Espresso and Rother Valley Copper Ale on handpump, local farm cider and perry, 16 wines by the glass, and some really inventive house cocktails. It's an old building, with 16th-c stripped beams and timbers; its mixed bag of rather secondhand-feeling furnishings - a cosy group of overstuffed leather armchairs and sofa, random stripped or Formica-topped tables and various café chairs - suit it nicely, as do the utilitarian bulkhead wall lamps. The ground floor is all opened together, from the sunny big-windowed front part to a snugger part at the back, with a log fire in the stripped brick fireplace below a stuffed boar's head, and a feeling of separate areas is enhanced by the varied flooring: composition, stripped boards, flagstones, a bit of carpet in the armchair corner. The young staff are good-natured and helpful; darts, board games and unobtrusive piped pop music, and the young black german shepherd is called Star. Out by the quiet lane are picnic-sets and one or two cheerful oilcloth-covered tables. We have not yet heard from readers who have stayed the night here, and would welcome reports.

16th-c beamed pub, relaxed and welcoming, with new licensees doing good fresh food all day (breakfasts too, wknds and summer), Harveys and guest ales, local farm cider, open fire, roomy and comfortable country décor; children and dogs welcome, ten bedrooms, open all day

The food uses good fresh ingredients from named local sources, often organic, and is cooked with flair - not fussy, but full of flavour. The choice for our early summer inspection lunch included a generous rare roast beef sandwich, smoked prawns with saffron mayonnaise, caramelised red onion and gruyère tart, devilled kidneys on toasted brioche, grilled chorizo hash with black pudding and egg, plaice and chips, slow-roasted lamb shoulder with an unusual pearl barley and cous-cous salad, and a delicious seared sea trout served with poached egg and local asparagus. They take care over details such as bread and the neat Peugeot pepper and salt grinders, and do breakfasts for non-residents at weekends and in summer.