Casual Dining Restaurant of the Year: Great Food Club Awards 2020

Winner

House of Feasts, Eye Green, Peterborough


Finalists

Hitchen’s Barn, Oakham, Rutland
Boboli, Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire
Bar Iberico, Nottingham


The winner is House of Feasts in the village of Eye Green near Peterborough, which impressed with its take on modern Polish cuisine.

Chef-patron Damian Wawrzyniak shows drive and passion to showcase a largely unknown and underrated European cuisine, giving it a modern twist using local ingredients.

Sunday lunch at House of Feasts

It’s not all boiled potatoes and dumplings at House of Feasts – far from it. Damian takes the best of Polish cuisine and modernises and refines it with dishes such as Royal Smalec (as served to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge), and Cambridgeshire Organic Pork Belly Hong Kong-style. The pork is brined with soy, cooked with orange, star anise and honey, fermented apples and marjoram.

Sunday lunches are a big hit at House of Feasts and we enjoyed the ham hock – brined and cooked in beer and served with roasted Cambridgeshire potatoes and vegetables. This was followed by aerated chocolate mousse with whipped cream, cocoa, preserved red currants and salted caramel.

Damian Wawrzyniak

Hitchen’s Barn of Oakham served us a delicious main of sea trout with new potatoes, samphire and brown shrimp.

Sea trout at Hitchen’s Barn

Bar Iberico in the bustling centre of Nottingham wowed us with some tasty tapas, including ‘Josperised’ bream with caramelised lemon and green sauce.

‘Josperised’ bream with caramelised lemon and green sauce at Bar Iberico

Boboli in the peaceful backwaters of Kibworth Harcourt served us a main of rolled neck of lamb.

Neck of lamb at Boboli
The author:

Philip lives in West Cambridgeshire in the Parish of Catworth with his wife. He loves eating out which he does for both pleasure and business. His other interests are collecting cookery books and menus, driving his tractor and working on the renovation of their old farm.