The Cutter Inn, Ely

The middle “pub” of three drinking / eating places on the riverside and the most pub like. An L shaped place with a bar, which is half a boat with a top in design, along the riverside edge of the L and a dining type area in the longer side behind. This bar has a T-Bar, the toilets and some excellent old local photos. There’s a popular riverside terrace although it’s a bit narrow. In the main bar two T-bars bracket a set of four pulls with East Anglian beers, two from Milton, an Elgoods and one from Nethergate - Dunsford’s Drop - I assume named after a rugby player or such like. White clapper board like wall covering, modern flag floor and stylish furniture mark it out as a refurb in recent times. A few old B&W photos of local scenes enliven the walls including a blow up photo of the pub from the opposite bank of the river.

A self proclaimed gastro pub with a tremendous setting on the banks of the River Ouse just as the river does a 90 degree turn thus almost giving you two vistas if you can bag the correct seats on the thin front outside river facing terrace. Inside it’s all very modern with the usual gastro bland colour scheme with the main bar room on the left, then a small lounge section with a couple of sofa’s and a larger dining room area to the right. As others have said, surprisingly there’s a very decent, relatively local, ale offering here and alongside Milton’s Sparta and Pegasus (which seem permanent from previous reviews) there was Tydd Stream Brewery Maelstrom and Mile Tree Rolling Mile Bitter. I went for the Sparta and the brew from Tydd Stream and they were both in excellent nick. I enjoyed our visit here, but then we did have a glorious day and were lucky to bag a riverside table to enjoy not only the boats on the river and the regional train service, but also the occasional fighter jet overhead returning to one of the nearby air bases.

Located in a prime position on Ely’s attractive riverside, it doesn’t have a large beer garden like some of it’s competitors with just a small terrace along the front, but is nonetheless still a pleasant spot and it has the advantage of actually selling proper beer unlike the nearby Riverside. Internally it has a vaguely nautical feel perhaps, as befits it’s location, with whitewashed wooden panelling on some of the walls, an unusual boat shaped bar counter which was something of a feature as well as a couple of oars hung above the door. Flooring was a mixture of some attractive tiling in the main bar with tartan carpet elsewhere. A cooper clad fireplace was off to one side, and a large black and white photograph of the pub took up much of one wall. It’s presumably been renovated at some point and is a little more contemporary than I expected, but it’s still a pleasant enough spot if a little lacking in character. A restaurant area was off to the right, and this was more modern in style and even included a baby grand piano in the lobby. Beers on tap were Barsham Norfolk Topper and Rocket Ales Sidewinder Citra along with Sparta and Pegasus from Milton Brewery. Unfortunately the only cider was Aspall’s, which was all the more disappointing in light of the Thatcher’s beer runners on the bar counter.

Trades on its bucolic waterside position (and also its proximity to the rail station). The interior is a stark, stripped-out affair, whitewashed to the point of death. The key is to grab a seat on the terrace overlooking the water. Surprisingly good cask selection and my Barsham Norfolk Topper was in good nick too (NBSS 3.5). Think this one is all about timing things right – a nice pint on a warm summer’s day overlooking the Ouse, pootling boats and trundling trains is a far different proposition to sitting inside a characterless barn under grey clouds six months later I’d imagine.