Essex Days Out

Being a milestone birthday today, we decided to head off to The Compasses at Pattiswick, which is off the A120 to the west of Colchester – about 10 minutes from the A12 at Marks Tey.

It’s got its own very swanky website (click here) which rightly boasts of the numerous awards it has won recently. So what of our trip this sunny March lunchtime?

The ‘gastro pub’ isn’t actually a pub at all – it’s a restaurant that has been built from some cottages, with a barn-style extension. It’s beautifully decorated inside to a very, very high standard – much more so than you might expect from the outside.

They have a very reasonable set menu for lunch and weekday evenings – only £7.50 for two courses. As it was a special lunch we went for the ‘a la carte’ and weren’t disappointed.

Starters were smoked duck with a salad, and deep-fried goat’s cheese, with the former laid out very nicely on a slate platter.

Mains were a herb crusted cod with kale and potatoes with a thyme cream sauce, and field mushrooms with a creamy stilton and chive topping with rocket, and a tomato sauce. Portions were just right for a lunchtime – if this was your main meal of the day you’d be feeling a little hungry later! Service was top quality, and the ambience complemented the food nicely. At just under £50 for two for lunch, with a half pint of beer each, it’s not the cheapest lunch you’re going to get, but you are getting food of a quality that you would pay twice as much for in posher restaurants. We’ll be trying the set lunch at some point in the future and will report back on that.

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