Ferry Inn, Horning — Restaurant in North Norfolk

We were struggling to find a mooring in Horning and had gone past a couple of times, one of the staff on the quay doubled up a boat to make a space for us and another boat that was seeking a place for the night. This was fantastic and we were very greatful.

The mooring fee was £20 for the night, the most expensive I'd seen on the broads. No offer of a plug in or water and no WiFi. The positive here though was that the £20 was deducted from the bar bill (meal and/or drinks).

There was a very poor selection of food on the menu and we were informed one of the meals wasn't available.

My brother ordered the fish and chips. I ordered the veggie burger. However my sister is vegan so wanted a vegan meal. Their best solution was the veggie burger without the bun, the cheese or the coleslaw. She asked if it was possible to have a salad with it instead. After checking with her manager the waitress said the price was fixed and we'd have to pay extra.

The fish and chips were adequate apparently but I was quite disappointed with the burger, for £13 I'd expected a bit more than a pati between an American style roll, a slice of American cheese and some coleslaw (The coleslaw was very tasty to be fair)

I was disappointed with the dessert as well, I ordered cheesecake and ice-cream. It was served with a bowl of whippy ice cream.

It was disappointing for our last night in Norfolk. It looks like such a nice place from the water and the staff were very nice but I didn't think the food was...

We moored here on our last night of a 4 day trip round the broads ... Don't get me wrong all of the pubs we ate at were not great but edible and clean and I suppose this is what happens when there is no competition to keep each other on their toes .. However.... Horning does have a couple of options to eat so just a small piece of advice... go to one of the others ... The ferry inn is dirty grubby and in total need of an upgrade .. it smells mouldy and is really off putting wanting to eat .. The only reason we did was there was no shops nearby and as our last night we had no supplies for dinner .... (although I was tempted to settle for a couple of biscuits and a cuppa back at our rented boat) Our 2 kids had a basket meal of bbq crispy chicken and chips ... the chips were clumped together and the chicken looked like it had been in the airfryer a day too long ... and a mighty £15 for the privilege... My husband had a steak pie that looked more like dog food and accompanied by mash potato that had a free crusty skin on... and my vege tart and side salad was interesting... thank god I had no ulcers as the amount of vinegarette that smothered the salad would have send me through the roof......yes vinegarette.. who knew that was still a thing ... All in all and £80 later (no starters or desert.. couldn't face it) we left the sticky carpet and crap offerings and sat on the boat with tea and biscuits.... The lads serving were polite... that's the only nice thing I'm...

On arrival we were greeted by a lot of loud music blasting from the restaurant. Partially our mistake as if we had looked on the Facebook page we would have seen this advertised, however we did book for a meal and was not informed over the phone that there was live music and a singer metres from where we were meant to be enjoying our dinner. We did mention on the phone we would have a 3 year old with us and our opinion was this wasn’t suitable for a family Easter meal. Never the less the restaurant was very busy being Easter Sunday and this was more our preference and as said if we actually followed the restaurant on Facebook we would have seen the advertisement.

We asked the greeter if there was anywhere quieter to sit to have our meal and we were guided through to the back room with the arcade machines which wasn’t a problem but the table was only about 2ft round. Not exactly appropriate for 6 of us to try and eat what looked and smelt to be a really good looking carvery!!

On this occasion we left due to the noise as we felt it wasn’t a suitable environment for the family meal we were hoping to have.

That being said it WAS advertised. The food looked fantastic The greeter did attempt to cater for us but on this busy Sunday was unsuccessful at meeting our expectations. On knowing we had a three year old however a heads up would have been appreciated on the phone call booking.

We will be coming back to try again while on the broads as the food did...