Benedicts Restaurant Norwich

The new Benedicts restaurant in Norwich was opened in June by Richard Bainbridge who had previously been the head chef at Morston Hall on the north Norfolk coast for several years. The restaurant was previously owned by the Raffles group of restaurants for many years and was known as St Benedicts, Jayne raffles and her husband then decided to concentrate on their Library restaurant  which is in another part of Norwich and close St Benedicts, so Richard took the opportunity to open his new restaurant there in June.
Benedicts is located in St Benedict's Street in the centre of the city and the new team includes several members that have come with Richard from Morston Hall including sous chef Ashley Williamson and restaurant manager Maddy Johnson.
Richard has dreamt of owning his own restaurant for many years and will be running Benedicts as a family business, he will have many Morston classics on the menu as well as exciting new dishes which he will be presenting as the team and restaurant takes shape and settles down over the next year.




Slow Food Norwich was contacted by Richard a few weeks before he opened as he had known about the Slow Food movement for many years and decided that with the opening of his new restaurant he would like to become involved with us in promoting Slow Food both in Norwich and also throughout the county of Norfolk.
Dermott, Graham and Damien all from Slow Food Norwich visited him at the restaurant just before it opened and discussed with Richard ideas about future events and also the possibility of a dedicated artisan Food Festival in Norwich in 2016 which would include many local Slow Food producers from the Anglia region.
Richard is passionate about the quality and provenance of produce he prepares and cooks so is very involved with sourcing local ethically produced food for his restaurant and guests, and this perfectly reflects the ethos and aims of Slow Food.




Several members of Slow Food Norwich have visited the new restaurant since it opened, including Graham who had lunch the day following its opening day and Dermott was there in early July. As one would expect from a restaurant of this high standard we found great food and excellent service in this light and open restaurant with an excellent menu to suit all tastes.
The lunch menu is very reasonably priced and overall we would recommend Benedicts to anyone who wants to eat exceptional food while either living or visting Norwich, so we have included the restaurant in the new Slow Food Anglia Approved scheme.
We believe the new Benedicts restaurant is a great addition to the culinary scene in Norwich which is flourishing and we now are planning to hold one of our Slow Food Norwich social events for our members there later on in the winter. Slow Food Norwich members also hope to work on ideas for our new Slow supper club where we will try to visit a different restaurant each month and try and tailor the menu each month around Forgotten foods of east Anglia and the more widely available Slow food Presidia produce.





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