Red Lion in Suffolk Coastal

Nice pub for lunch or dinner. We’ve been a couple of times since they had a revamp in 2023/2024 and it’s been really nice both times. Portion sizes are generous. Staff are friendly. Food organised by head chef Dave is really good and different to other places around martlesham/kesgrave/woodbridge which gives new options. We went recently for an early dinner and the pub was not busy at all which is such a shame for such a good pub but our service and food was really good. Alyssa was a lovely server and head chef Dave was cooking in the kitchen. Couldn’t fault it.

Lovely little gem we found which ticked all the boxes. Great atmosphere and amazing roast dinner! Dogs very welcome with little treats and blankets available. Would definitely recommend!

Excellent roast dinner. Child and dog friendly. It does get very busy so booking is essential

Bit disappointed with food and service, the chicken burger did not taste like how it was described in the menu and that's why I chose it because of the description. The toffee/ caramel Apple crumble had 2 bits of apple and the rest was stodgy it was more like a heavy sponge. The service... I felt we were rushed.

We ate here today but unfortunately it was very disappointing. Our order came out wrong and when I eventually got my roast it was only luke warm. The beef was advertised as pink but was over cooked, the roast potato’s were mushy and the Yorkshire pudding was so hard I couldn’t eat it. For the price I was expecting a lot more. Will not be returning.

Not sure a gastropub though. However staff are friendly and food is very nice

The food was lovely but I expected bigger portions for the price.

Poor experience at this restaurant on this occasion I asked to move as the lighting was poor and the room was very noisey but this was not even considered despite my request and the restaurant was not busy in the other areas and the guests in our area appeared to be seated together which caused the unwelcome noise. I am also aware you are dog friendly and a family with a dog was seated near us ……my issue was our waiter made a fuss of the dog stroking its nose and mouth and allowing the dog to lick his hands he did this a few times and immediately carried on serving food ….so little respect for hygiene ……I would not eat there again with this being thought as acceptable practice ……. such a poor hygiene standard. The food was however tasty so no complaints there .

Have visited several times recently and the last time was with our walking group. Great food at good prices with excellent service. Gavin and his team are doing a brilliant job in a good venue. Will be back again soon.

Beautiful setting, food was hot and as described.. Service with a smile too

Delicious food at affordable prices. The menu has your classic favourites but also changes up with interesting specials whenever I revisit. The new refurbishment gives a lovely cosy but modern village pub vibe. The service from Jensen was excellent - a warm friendly welcome, attentive and gave great recommendations. Thank you chef Regan for a brilliant meal!

Had a nice meal out with the family today. Good was good quality and arrived promptly. everyone enjoyed what they ordered and special thanks to our waitress Maddie. She was great, smiley, polite and professional. A credit to the pub!

Ordered a fillet steak medium rare at £30 and it came out tough and well done because we ate some of it because we didnt initially complain they refused to refund any. Wont be returning. Really bad service

I have visited today with a couple of friends for lunch and I had the belly pork dish and it was amazing and my friends enjoyed their meals too, The staff were very friendly and service was great the pub had a great atmosphere will definitely be back again

First time back after the pubs refit and it didn't disappoint.The staff were very helpful as usual, Alyssa who was showing Phoebe the ropes were both very helpful and on arrival informed us that because they had had a very busy day some of the food was not available, and there was a 30 min wait for food,but in fact our food arrived in under 20 min. 10 out of 10 for lovley food from chef Dave and first class service from both Alyssa & Phoebe. Will be back again very soon.

I have always liked this pub and never had a bad meal or poor service until today. The pub was busy so I would always take that into consideration. The waiter took our orders. No issues . The food came quite quickly, but It wasn’t as warm as it could have been. The yorkshires were over cooked and I couldn’t cut my beef. I had to ask for a steak knife in the end. The waiter then advised he was going on his break but someone else would help us. Well that’s where it went wrong. After sitting there for nearly 30 minutes after finishing our first course we had to ask someone for the dessert menu. Then after waiting a further 15 minutes we had to ask for someone to take our order. Then my husbands dessert was wrong. He ordered a mini with a hot drink and got a full sized dessert. This appeared to cause the waitress some confusion but got there in the end. This is a very popular pub and always very busy and I definitely will go back again as I’m hoping today was just a bit of a blip. That said, the staff were all lovely.

Lovely old-fashioned pub, excellent food, good choice of drinks and good prices. Highly recommend!

Fantastic place to eat. My friend had thr Barbers chicken burger and I had Barbers smothered chicken. Hadn't been here for a while and it's improved immensely. We will come again for sure.

We go here often food was pretty good, service is hit and miss but this is due to them being busy. Pies were great.

Very warm and welcoming. Food lovely and staff are really nice

Great surroundings, excellent service and excellent meals

Haven’t been here for years. Went for Sunday lunch. The Sunday roast was great through veg a little cold. Service was excellent. Big disappointment was the apple tart. The pastry was virtually raw. Could only eat the apple and ice cream. Disappointingly the waiter never picked up on the left stodge of raw pasty on the plate. Should have said something but thought it was pretty obvious there was something wrong with it. Other customers sent back cold calamari dishes. So they need to tweak the kitchen and its meals a little. Will try again to see if it was a one off.

Came in for lunch with my partner for the first time and we would 100% recommend. The food was 10/10 the service was 10/10.

Quiet part of the day to visit but staff friendly and efficient

Very enjoyable food...Great service & value

Just a nice place to eat and drink

Super meal at the Red Lion this evening. Great service and delicious food. Recommend the Chef Special Seafood Trio and the Steak and Ale Pie. Thank you Chef Regan. And special mention to Jensen who looked after us so well

Love this place , food delicious, staff friendly and the place itself slis warm and welcoming . Visit if you love home cooked food .

My wife and I enjoyed our meal, and drinks afterwards. Nice atmosphere, friendly helpful staff, pub was clean and comfortable.

Taking up the offer of 2 for 1 meal had a very nice lunchtime visit.

Served by Jacob tonight, he was warm, friendly and very attentive. Fantastic food, wonderful atmosphere. Thanks all very much.

Took my daughters for a meal, food was delicious and the service was attentive and quick. Overall a lovely evening. Thank you

Sunday dinner at 4pm.Quiet but welcoming atmosphere. Food was tasty, well presented and good value. Staff very friendly. Would definitely recommend.

Excellent Menu to choose from I went for the Steak & Ale pie very tasty. Great service from Jensen and Chef Dave.

Excellent food - tasty and cooked to perfection! Lovely waitress who was very smiley and couldn’t do enough for us. The pub was beautifully decorated and spotlessly clean. A lovely way to celebrate Boxing Day!

Good food at a great price, excellent staff

Lovely family meal out for my wife’s 40th birthday. Staff were very friendly and food was lovely.

2024 Still nice here. Decent food and good service. Had a pleasant family dinner here today. We all enjoyed it. That said, £4.50 still seems very steep for a pint of Coke from the little tap! (Update to the below review that I wrote a couple of years ago.) 2023 Had a work Christmas dinner here today and it was much better than last time. They didn't ask if I'd ordered the vegan main because I'm vegan or because I'm veggie or because I just fancied it, they just assumed I'm vegan and didn't give me a Yorkshire pudding, which was disappointing! But what I had was nice. The soup was very good and when the mains arrived, there was thankfully no cling film in sight! I was less concerned about ventilation this time too, so didn't even think about it. _____ Had a work Christmas lunchtime dinner here. It was fine. Not great, just fine. Slow service: after 1¾h they were just clearing away our main course plates. I had nut roast, which was quite nice. Bizarrely, my roast potatoes (and those with someone else's nut roast) arrived under a plastic bowl with cling film around it, and didn't look quite like everyone else's roast potatoes. Not sure what that was about! The soup starter was nice. The gingerbread cheesecake dessert was very sugary and not very cheesecakey. Also, I contacted the pub beforehand to check that the place would be well ventilated, and was told that unfortunately a lot of the windows were painted shut so couldn't be opened, but they were more than happy to discuss any worries with me. I called a couple of times mid-morning but it rang through to the answering machine. And when I arrived, it was to discover no obvious ventilation at all. I'll do LFTs for the next few days...

An easy 5 star here. Beautiful country pub, really friendly and helpful service and the food is absolutely brilliant. A new favourite on my list - will come back whenever in the area.

Hadn’t been to the pub for dinner for over 2 years. Really enjoyed the evening and the food was excellent. The pub is welcoming and an authentic pub. Special mention to Madi who looked after our table. She was polite, professional and very personable. A credit to the Chef & Brewer brand.

We had Sunday lunch with friends at the Red lion. Alyssa looked after us at the table. She was very efficient, friendly and professional. The chef was Dave apparently. We didn't see him. The food was lovely, tasty and hot. Thank you for a great experience

Had lunch there on Thursday, the room that we sat in was very cold, no heating on.

We enjoyed our chat at this pub. Only us on the day we went so not busy.

Love the new style from the refit, everyone was lovely as always. Especially Jacob

Just had a lovely lunch in this cosy olde world pub. Can’t fault anything and service from Chloe was tops

Went there for my partner's birthday, great welcome from Jensen. Steaks cooked to perfection, well done Ryan in the kitchen. Good service from the waiting staff. All round brilliant birthday celebration.

1. Drinking glasses cloudy. 2. Yorkshire pudding was too crispy/overdone , I think too big in size. 3.roast potatoes greasy 4. Pork was 30% fat . 5. Server bought to me port wine with ice!!! And this drink did not look like port wine. I was second time in the 8th months time and wasn’t happy then,so I will not go there again

Beautiful food with friendly staff and cosy atmosphere

Nice lunchtime meal. For a 'chain' pub, the menu is quite varied. Service is very attentive, too.

Some seriously fantastic food on the menu, creative, well presented and so tasty. Highly recommend the lamb shank shepherds pie! Service is spot on too, the manager, Derek is very personable and adds to the experience. Very attentive, and would suggest you embrace his suggestions!! - definitely didn’t steer us wrong! 10/10 would recommend the Red Lion. If you’re in the area definitely check it out!

Good staff for a pleasant meal but glad of the special offer price reduction.

Very cosy inside, and deceptively big. Food was delicious and the recent refurb brings traditional quaint English environment, with great service and very attentive staff. Will be visiting again soon!

Good friendly staff, plenty of tables, excellent deserts.

A nice friendly pub with good food. Looked great with the Christmas decorations up.

A reasonably priced pub with a nice architecture of wooden beams that bring character to the pub. Although next to a fairly busy road the noise is isolated and brings a quiet atmosphere. Food had good quality and presentation and a nice dessert choice, including small selections to go with coffee and tea. Overall a good experience and will be visiting here again

Really good food. Friendly service.

Everything is great except the table is not clean :) We like it is triple chocolate brownie with ice cream

Had a super lunch. V dig friendly too.

For us that like lager beer. The Level Head is worth trying if you would like some of the British taste. Nice. 👍

This was our second visit . The first was shortly after newly reopening and was spot on ! Disappointingly, it has not maintained it’s good start . We had erratic service and the food was average and not very warm , served on cold plates.There is not going to be a third visit :-(

Went on a Sunday as they had an offer on which consisted of a 2 course meal and a bottle of wine for £50:00. Having informed the waiter of our choices he informed us that the offer only included the Sunday Roast as the main meal so we changed to that. However, the offer was supposed to include all other items, bar a couple of exclusions. Rightly or wrongly, we chose not to make a fuss. Sadly, we both found the roasts rather under-whelming with most of the plate occupied by a very oversized Yorkshire pudding. Plus, having told there'd be at least a 30 minute wait we went for a cigarette only to then be told 5 minutes later our meals were already on our table. Not really ideal. At this point I must say, despite the above, our waiter was both very professional and very polite. A credit to the pub.

Went in for lunch. Good food & very efficient service. Found the place a bit gloomy during the day.

Alyssa is a really efficient customer service assistant and has a wonderful, friendly personality. The food prepared by Chef Dave was excellent. The new decor has been tastefully done and the place feels very homely.

A great steak & ale pie with a pint 🍻

Great food and friendly service! The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the background music . . Everything else was great.

Was a bit gutted went for Sunday dinner full roast and was let down and even got meal free hopefully turns round and go back to how it use to be would give anther go.

We had a lovely Sunday roast , we were well looked after by Alissa would recommend 👍

Lovely friendly village type pub. Had good conversations with locals. Well worth a visit. Very dog friendly.

It was ok, great staff, food average, but at least not over priced. I liked that the tables were not squeezed in. I don't usually mind when old pubs are quite dark inside but the Red Lion appeared to be particularly bad, however it was a quite gloomy day outside

Great food options but more beef on the bone please

Best lunchtime meal I have ever had.

Wife and I had a meal here tonight must say it was lovely. but just a couple of things to complain about. it would have been nice to be asked if we would like some apple sauce but no we had to ask for it. and had to have the custard re heated up. I asked for the bill and we had a voucher on the wife's phone the young lady went to take the wife's phone we said no the lady got a snotty

We were at a nearby campsite so over a wet few days, visited the pub several times! Food was excellent, staff friendly, and newly refurbished premises looked great. Dog friendly too! Lovely pub, clean, safe and welcoming.

Really excellent, lovely food and friendly efficient service. Thank you!

Great newly renovated patio and additional raised terrace out back! Lovely

Jenson our waiter was great. In fact all the staff were good. We were greeted when we arrived and taken to our table. I had mentioned it was our anniversary and we were wished happy anniversary by our greeter and Jenson. We both ordered the roast beef which was cooked to perfection. The Yorkshire puddings were enormous, thank you Reagan out chef. We will be back. Thank you

Chloe was very welcoming, full of cheerfulness, and always smiling. Along with enjoyable food, it was a lovely lunchtime visit. There is only one thing I would like to request Salad Cream, please :)

Me and wife have always loved it here, and the new revamped outside area has made it even nicer and very cosy. Food is always perfect here.

First visit in many years. Nice friendly welcome on arrival but no acknowledgement at the bar by two staff members. Technical issues on tablets made ordering frustrating and asking for food orders before drinks had even arrived was poor. No warning given on sold out dishes meant disappointment on ordering. Fish pie served with no mash and round of bread was unusual and didn't work, just spoiled a favourite dish! Bottles of wine a little expensive.

Lovely place for a birthday meal. Proper pie that I couldn't finish.

Lovely place for a quiet pint,friendly staff, good atmosphere

We were at The Red Lion twice last week. The food was very good. The two course Christmas menu was delicious. The staff were excellent.

Came for sunday lunch to celebrate a birthday. I want to start by saying the staff and the service were absolutely amazing! No issues from them at all. Unfortunately however, the food was really really bad for the price. The turkey was incredibly fatty and slimy, the broccoli was hard and undercooked, the bacon on the pigs in blankets was 90% fat and the big yorkshire was dry. The roast potatoes were lovely however you only got three and the stuffing was lovely as well but again, a tiny portion. The best tasting parts of the meal for me were tiny portions and the main parts were just inedible i actually gave away 80% of my food to other members of the table. I would like to mention two members had no issues with their food so i don't know if i was just unlucky with what i got but i was starving so incredibly disappointed. The dessert was lovely however again, i felt the portions were really small for the price. I would probably come here again based on the service alone however I would never come back for a sunday lunch.

A Welcoming atmosphere, delicious food and very efficient service, thanks to Madi for looking after our table 👍🏻

Good food - plenty of choice - helpful staff!!!

Good food. Service from Madi was excellent!

Highly recommend roast was amazing on Sunday. Really friendly service

Picture perfect pub, great atmosphere and food. Initially I only stopped there to ask for directions but decided to stay for lunch after walking in and seeing the plates of food coming from the kitchen and I'm glad I did. Special mention for Derek who put the Google Maps App on my phone so we easily found the barracks after leaving. Cheers Derek!

Such a beautiful restaurant with incredible food and service. Jensen served us so well and made the evening a wonderful experience. Thank you so much. Will definitely be back :)

Great food, Madi was really attentive, polite and made us feel welcome.

Not as good as usual. Waited half an hour for our drinks. Very cramped seating, think they didn't want to open up the full pub. Seemed short staffed and the two senior staff seemed to disappear and leave the young lad to cope on his own. The food was good though, thankfully as this was an evening out with friends who'd never been before, so a mixed first impression for them. Daytime staffing is always much better.

Great meal, Great service, parking a nightmare, not sure what is going on with the drinks, 3/4 glass of prosecco 1st round, 2nd round just 1/2 a glass, same price for both? Not sure what is going on there, will definitely say something next time!!

I was happy that they had game mixed grill on only to be told by the front of house it wasnt available, the people who came in and sat next to us ordered the game mixed grill and got it, which made my wife and I feel a bit second best, we won’t be returning for that reason, the food we did have and the service we did get from the waitress was very good, but that incident did put a damper on the night

We visited this week for hubby's birthday. When arriving we got told there would be a 45 minute wait for food. When food finally arrived which was longer than the advised wait it was extremely disappointing. Two of our party ordered the mixed grill which was awful. One meal was partially cold and another being a steak wasn't enjoyed. Whilst the mixed grills were not charged for and a round of drinks supplied due to longer than advised wait I do not feel there should have been any charge made at all. On contacting the manager when I got home I was told two chefs had not turned up for work and they were trialing a new supplier of chicken and had had other complaints. He said he would speak to his manager and call me the next day. I have heard nothing. We should have been contacted regarding the wait and I just don't think there is any justification in the food that was served. Whole evening ruined. Half the party had either not eaten or barely eaten. We were not going to stay for desserts etc Only one nice thing to mention was the waitress who was lovely.

Tried calling to ask a question regarding a promotion... phone no listed on website inactive... found another number answered by an AI bot that could NOT answer a simple question.... so... won't be using this pub .... when will companies learn that we sometimes need to a person on site... they also send you emails, but do not accept a reply to same email address .... How dare we ask a question.. So will now take myself off and sit on the naughty step... but will not be using chef and brewer

The food at the red lion is usually really nice however had a small piece of gammon not worth the price paid on a previous visit. They did eventually swap it for an equally small piece. The worst part about going to the Red lion for me is that regardless of whether you book a table or not they always try to sit you in the area right outside the kitchen where everyone walks past when you are eating. I'd prefer to sit anywhere else in the restaurant but there however to the staff it seems a big fuss and effort finding another table for us so on occasions I've walked out and gone elsewhere. I did today as I don't want to eat and have everyone walking past me and nudging me in the back as I eat and to pay for a nice meal put today was my dad's birthday we went and ate elsewhere and the alternative restaurant we ate at let us choose our table and we had a delicious meal with excellent service greeted as you'd expect to be with a friendly hello and a smile. There was also at the red lion a lorry parked right in the entrance and exit of the carpark really inconvenient.

We were served by Chloe, who was friendly and welcoming. Food was quick to come out and delicious, with bigger portions than we expected. The evening came to a good price for what we ordered.

What a difference in my recent experience. The service, food and atmosphere was terrific. We were looked after by Chloe, who was new to the team but she was open and honest about her experience and looked after us splendidly. The evening staff could learn from their daytime staff.

My friend had the vegetable pie which was not very good. Seeds on top and inside just onions and celery. Very disappointing .

Lovely lunch today at The Red Lion, Martlesham. Good menu, great food and excellent service from Darcey. Love the option of mini dessert with a drink which allows you to finish off your lunch without feeling over full (or go the whole hog and try the trio of puddings, very yummy). Great atmosphere with options of inside or outside seating, just an incredibly nice place.