Rye has some great restaurants, and most of them take full advantage of the area’s local produce, from Romney Marsh lamb to Hastings crab. If you want to dine out at the weekend, it is best to book.
Guide to Rye: Eating and drinking
Landgate Bistro
Passionate staff and great local ingredients add to up the perfect neighbourhood bistro. It offers a great set dinner on Wednesday and Thursday (also available weekend lunchtimes). Leave room for the English cheeses, if you can.
Webbe’s at the Fish Café
This modern and airy Arts and Crafts-era former warehouse can make a nice change from the low beams and crooked staircases that characterise many of Rye’s eateries. The open kitchen serves up the freshest fish and seafood, including rock oysters, Hastings crab and Rye Bay fish stew
The Union
A friendly bistro in a stripped-back former pub, keeping it local with a menu that features Dungeness crab and marsh lamb, plus a selection of 28-day aged steaks. Save room for the dark chocolate mousse or the blowtorched Burwash rose, one of Sussex’s most celebrated cheeses.
Simply Italian
Every town needs a no-nonsense, family-friendly Italian, and this is Rye’s, serving pizza and pasta galore, plus seasonal specials. It’s probably Rye’s most child-friendly restaurant – the colouring-in sheets and crayons are in place a millisecond after you’ve sat down, there’s a crowd-pleasing kids’ menu, and the staff take the time to check things like whether you’d like your children’s food to come out of the kitchen first.
Pubs
All your drinking requirements are catered for in Rye. Ancient beamed bars and historic pubs (most of them freehouses) serve local beers, fine wines, and good food. We’ve drunk in all of them but these are the ones we go back to.
Ypres Castle Inn
‘The Wipers’ has such a pretty run-up – through cobbly Church Square, past the 14th-century Ypres Tower, before descending down the ancient Gun Garden steps. By the time you set eyes on its white clapboard exterior, you’ll be thirsty for a pint. This is also the only pub in the citadel with a proper beer garden, which overlooks the river and Romney Marsh.
Craft beer lovers will enjoy the quickly changing roster of beers (some local, but many from London’s small breweries) plus there’s real cider and low-intervention wine. The snacks are ace and there’s a small but tasty menu to accompany the booze.
The Standard Inn
One of Rye’s most ancient drinking establishments (it dates to the early 15th century), this is a fashionably stripped-back pub, with a tiled floor, bare-wood window frames and scrubbed wooden tables, softened by distressed blue paintwork. Candles, an open fire and some wonkily beautiful beamwork add to the atmosphere; this is a place for loud, buzzy conversation, not hushed tones, just as a pub should be.
The bar serves beer from nearby breweries including Five Legs and Old Dairy, and the food includes local fish and seafood (the scallops with herb butter never leave the menu), Romney Marsh lamp rump and a pie of the day.
Rye Waterworks Micropub
Originally built as Rye’s pump house, this charming little building has had several guises since, including as a soup kitchen in the early 20th century, public toilets, and most recently an antiques emporium. Its current use suits it very well, as a micropub serving only local ales and ciders, including Three Legs, New Romney and Hop Fuzz. This intimate and very friendly spot is a go-to for a quick drink before an evening meal, a pint outside in the sunshine watching the world go by, or a bit more of a session.
The antiques shop (sort of) lives on, in that many of the pieces of furniture and objects that adorn the interior are for sale.
The Globe Inn Marsh
This very pretty weatherboarded pub is more of an informal restaurant, with an emphasis on local food. The interior is partly inspired by the rustic shepherd’s huts that pepper Romney Marsh (hence the corrugated-steel walls) and partly by the area’s maritime history (lobster pots turned into pendant lights).
The atmosphere is warm and the menu is extensive, from local fish and meat to ‘bonfire’ pizzas and imaginative dishes for vegetarians. Drinks include wine and beer from nearby Chapel Down and Gusbourne. The attractive raised terrace at the side is a good spot for an outdoor drink in a town that’s a little starved of beer gardens.
The Mermaid Inn
An alehouse since medieval times, the Mermaid’s cellars date from the 12th century, although what you see now is a mere 700 years old or so, with thick beams, elegant panelling and crooked floors.
Now a popular hotel – famously reputed to be haunted by the smugglers that used to hang out here in the 18th century – it also has an extraordinary lounge bar, dominated by an enormous inglenook ‘giant’s fireplace’, so big that it even accommodates a priest’s hole in the chimney breast.
The uniformed bar staff serve local ale and cider and there’s a good wine list. It’s a particularly welcome spot on a cold night, or after a big walk.
The Ship Inn
Originally a 16th-century warehouse that stored the contraband seized from smugglers, The Ship is now a family friendly pub and dining room, owned by Kentish winery Hush Heath. Enjoy its own Balfour English wines alongside an all-day dining menu of gastropub crowd-pleasers.
Cafes and Tea Rooms
Refresh and refuel with a stop-off at one of Rye’s cafes and tea shops.
Knoops
Probably the best hot chocolate you’ll ever have: select a type of chocolate (from white to super-strong dark), then add extras like orange zest, cinnamon and even a shot of booze. In summer they serve incredible chocolate milkshakes too. Very bad. But very good.
Whitehouse
An all-day dining spot in one of Rye’s loveliest buildings, a 16th-century house with a handsome Georgian frontage. As well as serving breakfast and lunch, it is also a base for The Lazy Baker, who sells the most delicious bread over the counter; the bread is also a significant feature of the menu, from eggs benedict on sourdough for breakfast to healthy and hearty sandwiches.
The two dining areas feature original fireplaces and Elizabethan panelling, contrasting with chic modern furniture and lighting.
The Mermaid Street Café
Occupying a prime spot at the foot of pretty Mermaid Street, this cafe could be thoroughly mediocre and still turn a profit – but thankfully, it’s a little wonder, with jolly, slightly beachy decor that’s thoroughly welcoming.
The front counter groans with cakes, pastries and other treats; pop in for a takeaway coffee or ice-cream, or take a seat for a great breakfast (prepared by the hotel kitchen upstairs), a cream tea or a light lunch – the Scotch eggs are recommended.
Marino’s Fish Bar
You can get fish and chips in loads of places in Rye, but (after extensive research) we think this is the best. In addition to being a takeaway it has a licensed restaurant. If you’re taking away, jump the queue on a Friday night by ordering online and collecting.
Bosun’s Bite
Pop down to the harbour for a fry-up or lunch at this little cafe. It does the full English and various breakfast permutations, plus family-friendly food like burgers and paninis at lunch. You can burn it off afterwards with a walk round the Rye Habour nature reserve next door.
The Cobbles Tea Room
Set on a tiny cobbled side-street, this is the place to go for the traditional afternoon tea treatment. A good selection of loose-leaf teas are served, along with cakes, scones and light lunches such as toasties and jacket potatoes. There’s a little garden out the back to enjoy it all.
The Queen’s Head Inn
A big, bustling freehouse with zero pretentions, the Queen’s Head is a lively locals’ pub, with pool table, piano and more than a few good pints. Stand at the bar, get comfy in a big squashy chairs around the stove or be seated for a meal.
The pub is becoming increasingly well known for its food, which is hearty and lovingly cooked from scratch on the premises.
There’s often live music on Saturdays.