About The Pheasant

Located on the Essex/Suffolk border in rolling countryside you may come across The Pheasant at Gestingthorpe situated 3 miles north of Sudbury and 3 miles away from Halstead. Up until October of last year, Diana worked at Hedingham Castle and developed the Wedding and Events business over an 11 year period to what it is today. So now Diana has moved 2 miles up the road with husband James who previously lectured at Writtle College in Garden Design and exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2003 with his own garden entitled”An Englishmens Home is...” A design based around Hedingham Castle. Before all of this worked in London for large company running restaurant and bars.

James & Diana have recently celebrated their first year at the Pheasant and things are going well, with the recent purchase of Borley Smokery, one of their local suppliers. “It seemed a shame to be losing one of our suppliers so we decided it would be a good idea to bolt it on to the Pheasant” James will be in charge of the smoking process and will be visiting local farmers market as the previous owners of Borley Smokery did, offering a wide choice of smoked foods, such as sea trout, haddock, halibut, kipper, pates and prawns, plus cheeses and nuts and will be taken orders for Christmas hampers. Incidentally all of these products will be available over the counter at the Pheasant...

The menu is based on serving traditional freshly prepared food, using local produce. Some examples of the food on offer at The Pheasant over the late summer period are pan fried Duck with a blackberry chutney with roasted beetroot, homemade fresh Taglitelle with wild mushroom with a white wine cream sauce, and the traditional game pie served hot with hand-cut chips . In addition James makes homemade crisps and as a beekeeper uses some of his own honey for dressings and sauces. Firm favorites for puddings are, Strawberry Pavlova, crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle, elderflower & white chocolate cheesecake, and raspberries in jelly with crushed stem ginger ice-cream, and not forgetting the ever popular the Raspberry Crème Brulee .

Amongst the beverages on tap is their own Pheasant Bitter, specially brewed by Mauldons of Sudbury A well chosen wine list covering the globe to suit all tastes, including the world famous Franschhoek Winery in South Africa, Alta Vista in Argentina, Maipo Valley in Chile to Moa Ridge in New Zealand.

The Pheasant is worth a visit and so is the village with many people discovering this “oasis in the middle of a desert” as one customer remarked

The Pheasant is open Tuesday to Saturday from 12.00 - 2.30 - 6.30 - 9.30 Sunday Lunch 12 - 3pm Please telephone 01787 461196