Restaurants in Rutland: The George & Dragon at Seaton
A fabulous pub restaurant offering two AA rosette dining and an admirable philosophy no matter what the weather… If it’s sunny, enjoy the pretty herb garden. Or, if it’s a bit chilly, there’s a traditional bar with wood burner and plenty of rural charm!
“We’re open 365 days a year,” says Ralph Offer, Chef Patron of Seaton’s George & Dragon. Well, maybe, but he won’t be in the kitchen on July 26th… he’ll be across the road at the village’s All Hallows Church, marrying his fiancée, Toni Louise.
Happily the kitchen will be in the safe hands of his excellent team including chef David Paul and his brigade, with an equally fabulous front of house team led by Joe Burne.
From the outside, The George & Dragon looks like a village pub. A pretty one, with ironstone and slate, dating back to 1879, but a pub nonetheless. And indeed eight years ago that’s just what it was.
Under Ralph’s tenure though, the place has become what we reckon is one of the best pub restaurants in Rutland, not to mention one that offers ridiculously good value dining, delivering dishes well beyond the call of duty whilst keenly maintaining its principles of looking after locals, supporting Rutland suppliers, and minimising both food miles and food waste in the process.
Ralph is a self-taught chef, who set up and ran many establishments for others before realising that he really ought to be doing it for himself, hence his renovation of the George & Dragon, which opened in 2017. He’s also keen on shooting, which means the place is popular for shoot lunches, and enjoys a plentiful supply of game in the cooler months.
The philosophy from the outset, he says, was to ‘do the simple things well.’ Not that the dishes the kitchen produces are in any way basic. There’s a bar menu with small dishes, house salads, sandwiches and burgers, and a breakfast menu, but the main menu is available during both lunchtime and evening service, and the George & Dragon is open from 7.30am-11pm seven days a week.
Otherwise there’s a Sunday lunch menu for £28.50/two courses, £32/three courses with what the team ambitiously promise are ‘the biggest Yorkshire puddings in Rutland.’ More gladness is yet to come though, because the team also provides spectacular value dining on Sunday and Monday evenings too.
Ralph and the team hate the idea of food going to waste. For that reason, they opt to butcher whole carcases of locally shot venison, Market Harborough beef raised by Joseph Morris and lamb from Gwilym Owen at Launde, all in house.
Poultry is also sourced from within the village, along with ‘the best eggs you’ll ever taste’ from some other locals, the Woolston family. There’s a village allotment too, with locals always willing to supply a surfeit of fruit and veg to the pub restaurant. For other fruit and veg, the team make a weekly pilgrimage to Uppingham Market to purchase their fresh produce for the weekend.
All of the pub restaurant’s bread is made in-house, and all of the ice creams and sorbets are made by the team too. There’s a productive and fragrant herb garden at the rear of the pub, which is also a lovely place to sit and dine or enjoy a drink or two. And speaking of getting pickled, the team preserve and pickle whatever they can too.
With that very pretty pub garden and a choice of a lovely traditional bar or a modern and quirky dining room, and with those Sunday lunches to enjoy, understandably the place is very busy all weekend… but what about Sunday evening and Monday nights, traditionally quiet times for any pub or restaurant?
Absolutely packed. Any ingredients unused during the weekend are invested in the George & Dragon’s ‘no waste’ supper club dishes. For example a chicken arrabbiata dish with fresh homemade pasta in the summer, or a winter stew with Yorkshire puddings to mop up the gravy – which is, again, made in-house by boiling up those beef bones and creating a really good stock.
The price for Sunday and Monday evening’s supper club? £5 per person. If that’s not considered by all who read this to be spectacular value and ethical dining, we’d be surprised. Wednesday evenings, too, the George & Dragon offers a homemade burger and drink for a very reasonable £10.
Villagers can also take advantage of the availability of takeaway fish and chips, £25 for two people, with 8oz of beer-battered haddock courtesy of the pub’s fish supplier (who will also sell fish to locals in the car park) plus hand-cut triple-cooked chips and homemade mushy peas. Locals can also take home a loaf of the bread that the pub restaurant bakes daily, plus local honey or jam when the team have some to spare.
As if it could get any better, Ralph has also achieved his Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) qualifications and has partnered with Hallgarten to provide a choice of over 30 really exceptional wines. Prefer a pint? Not a problem. Three locals ales are on tap which at the time of our visit included Nene Valley’s Simple Pleasures and Grainstore’s Ten Fifty.
There’s a quirky narrow snug, measuringjust a couple of metres by less than a metre. The snug’s compact dimensions, a lack of natural light and a big mirror at the end, reflecting your old and knackered looking editor, collectively conspired to prevent its photography, but it’s a fab space, popular with romantic couples and kids!
The place is dog friendly too… and not just dogs. One local turns up with his parrot on his shoulder and another with a Maine Coon cat on its lead (not at the same time, thankfully).
It’s impossible to overstate what a fun, happy, place the George & Dragon is, but it’s also committed to producing great food and investing tonnes of effort into things that other pub restaurants would consider too much hassle. The result is great dishes, a really admirable ethos and a thoroughly recommendable pub restaurant! We urge you to try it at your earliest convenience!
The George & Dragon, Main Street, Seaton, Oakham, LE15 9HU.
Call 01572 747 418, www.thegeorgeanddragonseaton.com.