Sutherland House
56 High St Southwold IP18 6DN
This classy, modern British restaurant is housed in one of Southwold’s oldest buildings and has won numerous awards over the years for both the quality and provenance of its food – indeed in 2012 it was reckoned to be one of the '150 best' restaurants in the UK by the Sunday Telegraph. No wonder: presided over by the ebullient Peter Banks, the cooking is high-end but there's a strong local emphasis to the food (they have a helpful guide to food miles on the menu).There's an admirably simple choice of lunch options, with steak sandwiches, fishcakes, hake nicoise, a lovely salad of seared scallops, pancetta and black pudding, or just good old fish and chips; dinner mains are more complex and much more expensive, with lots of regularly changing local fish – monkfish with ratatouille, pan-fried wild seabass, halibut with bouillbaisse sauce, as well as steaks and slow-braised Blyburgh pork from Jimmy Butler's local farm – all perfectly executed and presented, in an atmosphere that is posh without being precious. And if you feel too full to stagger very far, there are three rooms in the beamed rafters upstairs that are as comfy as anywhere in town.
