REVIEW: St Mary’s Inn Pub, St. Mary’s Park, Morpeth, Northumberland

When it comes to traditional pub grub, I do enjoy my classics. Sunday roasts, pies, ham egg & chips or perhaps the classic beer battered fish & chips. Here at the new(ish) opened St Mary’s Inn, that’s exactly what they serve on a Sunday. Honest, simple and tasty food at affordable prices. The bar area has a great selection of wines by the glass and an even better selection of local beers and ales. So while I was staying in one of the rooms (which you can read about HERE) at this pub with rooms, it would have been rude of me to not check out its food offering – although perhaps I shouldn’t have had a Sunday roast in the local town of Morpeth first. The Sunday menu here is priced at £21.50 for three courses and includes a choice of Sunday roasts with all the trimmings.

Starters here were of the very classic kind, apart from one dish which stood out like a sore thumb from the menu. Purple sprouting broccoli with parmesan cheese. A simple dish which looked a little messy in its appearance, but tasted quite the opposite. Full of flavour and textures – it was every vegetarians dream. Size wise however it was a little on the small size. No Sunday meal would be complete without dabbling in an extra-large helping of a prawn cocktail. Medium sized juicy prawns were slathered in a lovely sweet marie rose sauce, sliced ripe avocado, crispy lettuce leaves and one slightly larger prawn which got devoured in an instant. If you make it down for lunch here at St Mary’s Inn, I highly recommend these two dishes.

Main courses didn’t disappoint either, but with us eating in the later part of the evening it meant some items felt a little like the last of the bunch and slightly overcooked – with those all important roasties actually needing a little more crisp. I continued with the vegetarian theme and ordered the spinach and truffle pie. Pies here are beautifully crafted. Rich, buttery, flaky and the fillings were excellent. Stick your knife through the flaky pastry and the rich and earthy aromas spill out all over the table. Pork belly roast didn’t disappoint either. Again the roasties needed to be a little more crisp and some of the veg a bit limp, but it’s crispy crackling on the meat was good enough for us to quickly forget about the lack of golden crisp on the potatoes. Jus here was notably good too and helped turn these good roast dinners into excellent ones.

By this point, after my second helping of roast dinner for the day and a second dessert, I was ready for bed – thankfully I didn’t have to go far but through the pub (swipes a glass of wine on the way past) and we decided to take our white chocolate trifle dessert up to the room which turned out to be the perfect idea. The great thing about St Mary’s Inn is just that – you can eat, drink and sleep here and not have to worry about a single thing – except how much you plan on divulging in to it’s food and drink offering.

7/10