Hi Gabs,
We were in your neck of the woods last weekend and ended up spending the night in Ticehurst at the Bell Inn. It was gastro pub meets roaring fire country pub meets funky and well designed bedrooms. The combination worked.
As a Londoner heading to the country for a weekend I think I tend to look for 3 things: an expanse of green space, country markets and farms and a slower pace. This time I got all three.
We booked ourselves a table in the pub restaurant and good thing we did as I came to realise that on a Saturday night the Bell was indeed the place to be. To get one of their seven rooms on a Saturday night would be a feat until the end of the year but the restaurant seemed to be equally popular.
My starter of Curried Parsnip Soup with Onion Bhaji sounded interesting but was a little bland. I always think that if you’re selling an idea of cuisine i.e: India - hot, fragrant, spiced, then you should live up to that and unfortunately this needed a lot of salt and I asked for some fresh chillies. Eddy’s Crab with Toast was wonderful however. The crab was chunky, flaky and certainly fresh. I wanted his but he didn’t want to swap!
My main of Belly Pork with Mash and Black Pudding was nice but the pork was far too fatty. The ratio of meet to fat must have been 30 to 70, which was too much for me. Everything else on the plate was perfectly fine though and I had a few bites of Eddy’s Spanish inspired Cod with Chorizo/Tomato Stew. The Cod he was given was ample and moist and the stew was flavoursome. Again he didn’t want to swap.
We ended with the Sticky Toffee Pudding. No faults to note there.
The vibe and feel of the place was pleasant and although the food was not a total hit I forgave it because the rooms and people were lovely. It came to £54 including drinks and for what we got we were happy to pay.
The following morning our included breakfast was brilliant. My Eggs Benedict hit the spot. Eggs were perfectly runny and Eddy liked his Full English. We sat in the same spot that we’d had dinner, but this time we were alone and the sun was melting the previous nights frost. A peachy end to a lovely night.
I think the rooms were my favourite part though. They were done so well and with such thought and taste and I know some people wouldn’t love this but we revelled in being allowed to have our dog in our room with us. It was also nice to have her at our feet while we had brekkie.
The Bell Inn
8/10
High Street
Ticehurst, TN5 7AS
Tel: +44 (0) 1580 200 234
www.thebellinticehurst.com
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