Local lads and long-time friends Matthew Reeder and Michael Singleton took over the Silver Cup in 2020, with chef Reeder bringing experience from the kitchens of top London restaurants and Singleton the front-of-house skills.
Named after a trophy awarded to winners at the racecourse it used to stand next to, the pub has been serving the local community since 1838. During lockdown it was refurbished to create a modern dining experience, “special, but welcoming and unpretentious”.
Inventive menus make use of sustainably sourced produce, game from local farms and foraged ingredients. The kitchen makes its own bread and ice-creams, ferments, pickles and cures its own fruit and vegetables, and butchers whole animals on-site for nose-to-tail cooking.
It’s all served as an eye-catching seasonal seven-course set menu, available with a drinks flight, in dishes featuring duck egg gribiche, beef short rib, Coronation Orkney scallop, Cornish plaice, mussels and beer, Sutton Hoo chicken, olive oil ice-cream and Black Forest gateau.
There’s also a pub sharing menu that includes padron peppers, lamb scotch egg, Gloucestershire Old Spot pork belly, beef ragu, horseradish and dripping sourdough and torched lemon tart.
