The Ship Inn — Restaurant in England

Let's start with the location and look of the place, which you can't really fault, there is a beautiful green and a gorgeous u shape series of white washed houses with a pub at its heart. Its right by the sea. It's gorgeous. The pub itself even has that coveted fireplace ( though not on when I came in the summer).Now as much as I support local artists, there is, semi objectively, too much art on the stone walls. I love art but I also love stone walls. My main complaint is however that there is no WiFi, and I have to admit, as I am travelling through the region (and the UK) in a camper, spending all my money in restaurants and using these times to plan the next day of travel, I find this lack of basics very frustrating and I am losing patience with it. Before you shame me about my reliance on wifi, I carry a phone and a separate 4g dongle but no signal was available within these walls so it's not a choice. I (and the table next to me apparently) would therefore appreciate if the management could fork out £40 a month to offer wifi to an otherwise helpless clientele "we just don't do that" is what I was told, "you can get signal on the green" - an improvised picnic? Anyways, It was pie night when I phoned and i was glad I was able to secure a spot. After asking for recommendations I went for the cauliflower one, which was a good vegetarian option but I wouldn't say it was a mindblowing pie as in, does this really call for a pie or are we still not entirely comfortable with the concept of vegetarian meals? The gravy was tasty the crust was good too. Seems to me that the specialty mushy peas were in fact garden peas slightly mashed which to be honest is what I try to get away with when doing them at home. The house wine was good. So overall, it wasn't bad, it was good even, there is room for improvement and I'm not sure it would take that much...

Called in for lunch after a very long walk … feeling extremely hungry and thirsty . Ordered the local kipper salad and the bratwurst in a pretzel style bun from “the specials “ board … assuming ( wrongly ) that being on “the specials board “ would indicate that it was going to be something special… sadly when it arrived , complete with knife and fork , I was speechless. One small thin sausage , with a small ( very small ) amount of tasteless sauerkraut, flakes of crispy onion and some mustard drizzled across the entire length of the sausage - and bearing in mind the sausage was less than 6 inches long there wasn’t much of that either !. My wife’s kipper , complete with two slices of supermarket sliced bread and tiny amount of salad was bone dry and the skin was burned - the poor fish looked like it had been cremated or had been cooked the day before and re heated . This was not what we had been looking forward to after our long walk . This was pub food at its worst and quite frankly was the lowest quality I have had for a very very long time . If this is the best you can do then stick to selling beer / coffee and cakes and leave others to provide quality food ! I will not return and would not recommend eating at the ship. Extremely disappointed . Ps - check out my photo of the “special “ bratwurst . Please note that this is on a side plate . even the server who brought out this didnt...

We have visited the Ship Inn quite a few times while walking our dog and always find ourselves disappointed by the experience. They say that dogs are welcome but that is not the vibe they give out! I would say dogs are tolerated rather than welcomed - tolerated because 80% of their customers are dog-walkers. There are no dog treats available at all and nothing on the menu that can be ordered for dogs - I asked and got a clear and somewhat disdainful response! I really don't think they like dogs and just have to put up with them in order to survive commercially. Very sad... Regarding food, the menu is fine if you like crab - it's heavily geared to that but at the expense of anything else. The toasted sandwiches are bland and unappetising. It's a shame as they could do a range of traditional and fish-based pub food if they wanted to. It's a great location and nothing wrong with the beer and the drinks - it's just that you don't feel very welcome with your dog in tow and the food leaves much to be desired. A missed opportunity on several fronts if you ask me! Contrast this with the Grey's Inn at Embleton - just a short walk away - a traditional village pub, very welcoming to dogs and their owners with an impressive range of good, unpretentious pub food. It beats the Ship...