Traditions die hard. For many of us, Sunday isn't Sunday without sitting down to a proper lunch. Charlotte Smith-Jarvis goes in search of the perfect roast.
The Sunday roast . . . I can’t count the hours I’ve listened to friends and family recounting tales of anaemic potatoes, veg cooked so long it wouldn’t look out of place in the compost bin, tough, fibrous meat, and missing Yorkshire puddings.
Maybe they're exaggerating. After all, can anyone really cook a roast dinner as good as your mum's, dad's, nanna’s, or even your partner's? Yes, actually.
Fields Farmshop & Café in East Bergholt is a joyful spot, surrounded by country walks, and with an ever-growing list of furry and feathered creatures welcoming customers as they make their way along the driveway, the latest being a pair of adorable donkeys. Passing an impressive display of seasonal veg, luring customers enticingly into the farm shop, we gladly tumbled from the cold, windy day outside into the lofty converted barn dining room. It’s an impressive space; an industrial look softened with festoons of dried autumnal flowers and grasses.
Not a single table was empty, bar our waiting number four, apparently the best for enjoying sunsets. Decide to go to Fields on Sunday and you'll need to book. There are banquet-style tables for families, as well as smaller tables for groups of friends to gather. Welly-clad walkers were resting on sofas, edging towards the log burner, joined by their dogs. Fields welcomes dogs and doesn’t expect owners to cower on the terrace in the rain.
Tables are nicely spaced, chairs comfortable. The room is alive with chatter under the high ceiling - this is not the place for an intimate, quiet lunch.
The food
During the week, Field's has become known for its chunky sandwiches packed with salt beef and sauerkraut or chunky fish fingers.
Sunday, however, is all about the roast - beef (£20), pork (£17.50), rotisserie chicken (£18.50), or the vegetarian option (£14), on this occasion a roast of cashew nuts, spinach, squash and mushroom. The cafe is licensed; 175ml measures of wine are a very reasonable £6 or thereabouts. There's an extensive choice of non-alcoholic drinks from a mocha, dirty chai or peppermint tea, to dandelion and burdock, rose lemonade or ginger beer.
Our food arrived in under 10 minutes - if that isn’t an argument for a shorter menu, I don’t know what is. Cauliflower cheese came first, the knobbly veg bubbling in a cast iron bay of velvety cheese sauce, strewn with crumbs and fried herbs. It was followed by pots of homemade apple sauce, made with Bramleys from the farm, and horseradish.
It isn’t easy to make a roast look pretty, but the main course was lovingly composed with a rainbow of colours around the plate, every twist and turn of the fork revealing a hidden treat. Dedham Vale beef was just blushing in the middle, cooked to satisfy just about every diner – not too pink, not overdone. It had a toothsome, burnished crust, and was full of flavour.
Dingley Dell pork was declared the best ever eaten. Succulent pork belly had been rendered to near collapse, supported by a sausage meat farce, fat melting into a thin, crunchy layer of skin. It was utterly delicious.
In supporting roles were sticky maple glazed, lightly charred carrots freckled with Nigella seeds, big spoonfuls of cinnamon and anise-scented red cabbage, white cabbage, frilly kale, romanesco and broccoli.
The roasted potatoes were just about perfect and although the menu doesn't list Yorkshire pudding with the pork roast, both meals came with puffy clouds of flavoursome batter into which we pooled lashings of real, bone stock gravy.
We followed with devilishly moreish millionaire’s shortbread, short and crumbly on the bottom, buttery with caramel in the middle, and slathered in a thick, toothsome layer of dark chocolate. My warm sticky toffee pudding, despite being black as stout, was featherlight and flooded with deep treacly sauce.
Then we went exploring - a stroll around the farm shop, where you can top up bottles with eco-friendly Fill products (try the neroli laundry detergent which fills the house with a beautiful perfume), or pack your bags with anything from local veg, to gingerbread caramel spread, s’mores kits, candles, or excellent basics such as eggs, milk and flour.
About Fields Farmshop & Café
Caterers Abby Clayton and Andrew Mackenzie opened Fields Farmshop & Cafe in November 2021, and are looking forward to some exciting developments in 2023.
They now offer three multi-use events spaces for hire, for any occasion from parties to wedding receptions and wakes, with access to the onsite catering team, and table and chair hire available. The largest space can accommodate parties up to 120 people and can be expanded with a marquee in summer.
The onsite farm shop has recently been refurbished, offering more local produce than ever and adhering to their low-waste, environmentally friendly ethos.
Lucy Hutchings (She Grows Veg) is working with the team to create a vegetable garden on the farm’s lawns, enabling Fields to grow their own produce for the shop and café.
Find out more at fieldskitchen.co.uk
Do you have a favourite Suffolk spot for Sunday lunch? Let us know jayne.lindill@archant.co.uk
