The Duck Inn

Unfortunately The Duck Inn has sadly had to close its doors, we wish Ben and Sarah all the best with their future endeavours. You can read all about what made the pub so special below.

Run by couple Ben and Sarah Handley, the Duck remains high on the Top 100 list, being a frequent name on the Top 50 list over the past few years.

Not only was it first named on the 2019 Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list, it came runner up in the OFM Awards for Best Sunday lunch and was also a finalist in the 2018 GQ Food and Drink Awards for Best Pub. We can’t say this enough – an outstanding team are behind this fantastical venue.

In 2017, the pub was also among the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs One to Watch venues and made it onto the list for the first time two years later.

The award-winning honest gastropub serves the best local produce that can be found in the region, as well as East Anglian ales.

“Friendly and efficient service perfectly compliment the incredible food served by chef-patron Ben Handley and his team,” the gastropub’s website says.

“Norfolk favourites such as Brancaster crab, steaming bowls of Norfolk mussels, locally caught salmon with gingerbread are regular highlights.”

All of this can be found alongside Handley’s locally famous black pudding scotched quail’s eggs.

As well as providing the nosh, the Duck Inn also two bedrooms for weary travellers or those who want to spend the night.

Friendly to vegans and vegetarians, the pub has four main menus, including lunch, dinner, Sunday and dessert.

The historic Inn has been a pub since the 1700’s, with delicious locally sourced food that celebrates its corner of East Anglia a few miles from the Norfolk coast giving the Duck lift-off.

Whether wetting your beak from its extensive wine list, curated beer collection and range of Norfolk cordials or sampling some SFC (Stanhoe Fried Chicken) with ‘Holy Cluck’ sauce and fresh seafood, visitors to the Duck can expect to be spoilt for choice.

But don’t just take our word for it, visiting the pub in August 2020, Sunday Times food critic Giles Coren gave the Duck a rave review, describing the pub’s Garden Room as a “cute, modern, open-sided barn, giving onto a lovely garden of apple trees and bright flowers” and heaped praise on its staff for adapting to Covid measures like the proverbial to water.

Coren also described the food as “properly good”, recommending the “really good lamb kofta” and describing the service as “swift” and “understanding”.