Dering Arms

Interesting building with carefully chosen wines, three ales and good fish and seafood dishes; bedrooms

Features

Accommodation available
Speciality beers
Cask ales
Separate restaurant
Sandwiches
  • Separate restaurant
  • Sandwiches sold

Bar food times: 12-2.30, 6.30-9; 12-3 Sun

Typical main dish: salmon fishcakes with sorrel sauce

Typical main dish price: £12.95

Average two course evening meal price: £22.00

  • Speciality beers
  • Cask ales

Price of cheapest bitter: £3.50

Name of cheapest bitter: Goachers

Price of a bedrooms starts at £0.00

  • Children allowed in the bar
  • Children allowed in the restaurant
  • Dogs allowed in the bar

The good pub guide review

This handsome inn was built in the 1840s as a hunting lodge on what was then the Dering Estate. It has an imposing stone frontage with mullioned arched windows and dutch gables. The high-ceilinged, stylishly plain main bar has a solid country feel with a mix of wooden furniture on flagstones, a roaring log fire in a big fireplace, country prints and some fishing rods. The smaller half-panelled back bar has similar dark wood furnishings, plus an extension with a woodburning stove, comfortable armchairs, sofas and a grand piano; board games. A beer named for the pub from Goachers and Goachers Gold Star Ale on handpump, six good wines by the glass from an unusually finely stocked cellar, local cider, 30 malt whiskies and 20 cognacs. There are three comfortable bedrooms. Classic car meetings (the long-serving landlord James has a couple of classic motors) are held here on the second Sunday of the month.

The good pub guide food review

First class fish and shellfish (oysters, prawns, lobsters, crab, skate wing, black bream, sea bass and more) are the stars here, though they do offer non-fishy choices too, such as interesting tapas, duck rillettes with ciabatta toast, venison steak with potato and celeriac purée and port sauce, confit duck with bubble and squeak potato cake and black cherry and ginger sauce and leg of lamb steak with peppers, black olives and couscous, plus puddings such as banana and vanilla ice-cream pancake and sticky toffee pudding with warm walnut sauce.

2021 Awards

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Contact Details

Dering Arms, The Grove, Pluckley, Ashford, Kent, TN27 0RR

(01233) 840371

Opening Hours

Weekdays: 11.30-3, 6-11

Saturday: 11.30-3, 6-11

Sunday: 12-4.30