Dining Out: The Suffolk pub serving seven-course tasting menus

When Velvet’s Wendy Davey visited The Beehive, Horringer, for a midweek meal, she hoped the food would be good. In fact, spanning seven skillfully compiled courses, it proved spectacular. . .

A midweek dinner for me, at the end of a busy day at my desk, would typically be a jacket potato thrown into the microwave, or a speedy stir-fry of all the rather sad looking vegetables found lurking in the bottom of my fridge. Fuel, basically.

So to be asked to pop along and experience a Guest Chef Night at The Beehive in Horringer, and be presented with no fewer than seven courses on a mouth-watering taster menu, was a winner before we’d even arrived.

The Guest Chef Nights have been running monthly and involve brothers Theo and Hugo Aguda – chefs at Gonville Kitchen in Cambridge – heading along the A14 towards Bury St Edmunds, to delight the diners at The Beehive with a fabulous selection of small plates that pack a punch.

My partner Dave and I were shown to our table by the window in the characterful dining area, where a log burner took the chill off the autumnal evening. And then came the food.

We were both pretty peckish and our palates were awakened - and delighted - by the amuse bouche which was the first course of the seven which stretched ahead of us. It was an exquisite mouthful: tuna tartar with a ponzu dressing and curled spring onions. One bite wasn’t really enough as it was truly delicious…

A local soda bread – baked in the village we were told – arrived next, with a beautifully sweet honey beurre noisette. My favourite course followed the bread – a starter of mushroom wonton with mushroom broth. The flavour was intense and absolutely divine.

We then moved on to the meat course: duck breast with torched plums, burnt spring onion puree and seared pak choi. The duck was cooked to perfection and the plums offered a delicious sweet kick.

The fish course followed – tuna tataki, with dressed daikon radish, edamame and a puffed rice cracker. The texture of the tuna was fabulous, with the most wonderful peppery kick of flavour.

The dessert was a mouthful of heaven… dark chocolate ganache with brown sugar honeycomb and a honeycomb tuille. And finally, our palates were cleansed with a beautifully sharp and intense yuzu sorbet.

Wow. Thank you Theo and Hugo. Wednesday dinnertimes don’t get better than that.

Velvet visited The Beehive by PR invitation. The Beehive is at Horringer, Bury St Edmunds. More at thebeehivepub.com

Master Chefs
When is a guest no longer a guest? When they move in. Theo and Hugo Aguda have clearly enjoyed delighting diners in Horringer as much as the diners have enjoyed sampling their food, as they announced this week that they are leaving the Gonville Kitchen and moving into the kitchens at the Beehive permanently.
Simon Chaplin, director of The Beehive, describes Theo and Hugo as ‘two of the most talented chefs’ he’s worked with. “Food needs to be created with passion... we believe that food should be unique and have an original twist that brings surprise and pleasure to the palate,” he adds.
Says Theo: “We are both incredibly excited about the move to The Beehive. Our plan is to keep everything as local as possible, while producing the best quality of food in the best way possible.
“Our ideas for the future are exciting and we cannot wait to share our culinary passion and ideas with Bury St Edmunds. Our goal, be the best in Bury!”
Theo and Hugo will be moving across to start full time at The Beehive from November 3.