Sunday Roasted: Tillingham vineyard restaurant
This editorial first appeared in The Argus on Friday 25 September 2026.
Each week one of our journalists visits a Sussex pub or restaurant to munch the meat, taste the tatties and chew the fat. Nick Mosley heads to the restaurant at Tillingham vineyard near Rye to check out their Sunday lunch.
Price: Set price of £40 for two courses or £46 for three courses, served Sundays 12 noon - 8pm. Brewing Brothers tap beers are available at £6.50 a pint. Tillingham wines are available by the glass at £8-12 but after sampling a still and sparkling wine flight they were a bit ‘marmite’ for my palate so we settled on an entry level bottle of Spanish white from Cataluña (£38) with our lunch.
Venue vibe: Very kicked-back and a lot more cosmopolitan in style than most Sussex vineyards,. that can be a little snooty. This was clearly reflected in the demographic on my visit – plenty of groups of clearly monied millennials. The huge pizza barn with wood-fired oven is open daily, as is the bar and small shop. Upstairs is a restaurant space with open kitchen and fantastic views over the vineyard towards the coast.
Menu options: Snacks, four starters, four mains and three desserts for the Sunday service. Starters including an Asian-influenced chalk stream trout, charred leeks with toasted almonds and a substantial plate of local merguez-style sausage with north African flavours. For the main, roast beef and pork belly, Rye bay skate wing with brown shrimp butter and potato gnocchi with lemon ricotta and a bed of ratatouille. Desserts read as accomplished on the menu but we didn’t order on this occasion.
Meat count: Generous. Very generous. Four thick slices of medium-well done beef rump that was genuinely melt-in-the-mouth with a beautiful flavour brought by a slither of well-cooked fat. The pork belly has just enough fat to keep the flesh moist and the supremely thin and crispy crackling was easy on the jaw.
Veg out: Roasts come with spuds but if you want more vegetables then they are £6 for a hearty bowl. Personally, this is my bête noire – especially when it comes to Sunday lunch; a carrot and a handful of greens cost nothing. That said, the crispy topped slightly smokey gooey cauliflower cheese was a real hit on our table.
Roast potato crisp-to-fluff ratio: As Goldilocks might say: not too big, not too small but just right. These were well-sized roasties with a decent outer crunch enveloping a soft but still structured interior. Definitely not over-cooked or dry.
Gravy rating: 10 out of 10 from my dining compadres. Oodles of piping hot, deeply rich gravy. And – joy of joy – it was served in large individual jugs so you could serve yourself rather than being served a swimming plate or spending half your lunch trying to catch your servers attention for more.
Yorkshire puds or duds: With most of my fellow lunchers heralding from God’s Own County, there were pudding opinions pinging around the table faster than a pinball. No doubt due the lashings of flavourful gravy, our Yorkshire patriarch said the huge batter confections had a satisfying crunch but plenty of fluff: ‘not bad for southern England’.
Allergens and dietaries: Two plant-based starters – that can be made into double portions – and one main of potato gnocchi cater for vegans and vegetarians. Disappointingly - and surprisingly - for our table, neither of the roasts have gluten free options which is increasingly a rarity anywhere in Sussex and for a restaurant charging these prices is verging on the unacceptable. Perhaps Yorkshires aside, it’s not rocket science to use cornflour for a gravy.
Family-friendly: Yes. Both the restaurant and downstairs bar and terrace are abundantly child-friendly, at least during the day. With wood-fired pizzas from £11 available, its absolutely perfect for a lazy afternoon with little ones with plenty of space to burn off some energy.
Dog-friendly: Tillingham is a mixed estate including vineyard, woodland, orchard and free-roaming livestock. Well-behaved dogs are welcome in the informal bar and pizza barn, but as this is a working farm they need to be kept on a lead for walks around the wider estate.
Post-lunch nap probability: In this neck of the woods, Sunday snoozers are losers. No time for napping – plenty more cellar door tastings to be had in the Rother Wine Triangle.
The roast round-up: At £40 for two courses, this isn’t a cheap Sunday lunch; it was easily over £60 per head once drinks and sides were taken into account. However you’re also paying for the ambiance and very amendable service in one of the most beautifully located vineyard locations in Sussex.
Tillingham, Dew Farm, Dew Lane, Peasmarsh, East Sussex TN31 6XD
01797 208 226 • www.tillingham.com
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