Wine list of the week: Grain Store at The Maltings
Once brimming with pillboxes and anti-tank ditches, Weybourne’s coastline is now a windswept pilgrimage for blustery walks and board games, and, as Douglas Blyde discovers, exquisite seafood and unpretentious wine.
The Maltings in Weybourne has been resuscitated – not merely restored – by the Chestnut Group, the East Anglian outfit with a knack for turning draughty old inns into places you want to stay put, preferably with a plate and a bottle. Beyond their ventures in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Essex, including The Cricketers in Clavering (once owned by Jamie Oliver’s parents), they have staked a strong claim along the north Norfolk coast, where salt marshes, dunes and long beaches meet flint-built villages and a larder of lobster, venison and Binham Blue. Here, they run an enviable collection of pubs, big houses and boltholes, each tuned to its surroundings. They also own Peter Graham Wines and Bijou Wine Merchant, ensuring none of this revival is undertaken dry-mouthed.
Once a malting site and later a village pub, the building belonged in the 1800s to William Bolding – brewer, photographer, and man-about-Weybourne – who ran a brewery, managed pubs, and captured early images of local life on glass plates. His vast-windowed barn, once used for photographic alchemy, is now The Grain Store: a double-height restaurant flooded with Norfolk light and fresh thinking. The same airiness which once fed Bolding’s lens now frames both meals and memories.
The food matches the setting. The Telegraph called it “more than memorable, some of it spectacular,” while a TripAdvisor pilgrim named Hollie deemed it, with unbuyable sincerity, “More Homely than Home.” Condé Nast Traveller listed it among its Top 21 New Restaurants of 2024, and The Sunday Times placed The Maltings on its 100 Best Places to Stay in 2025.
And the setting? Weybourne sits on the fringe – a cartographic afterthought of pebble beach, salt air, dogs on blustery walks, and a vintage railway. During the war, its shoreline bristled with British defences – pillboxes, anti-tank ditches, and an anti-aircraft training range. Those fortifications have long fallen silent, replaced now by books, boardgames, and beer.
Drinks
Curated by Maltings general manager, Maxence Dominique Pinard – whose path runs from buoying breakfast service at The Dorchester to steering Chestnut’s most ambitious venture – together with group wine consultant, Cynthia McCreadie, who honed her palate at The Old Bridge in Huntingdon, and restaurant manager, Luara Santos Passos, the list at The Grain Store proves just how much can be achieved with less. It runs to just two pages yet feels complete, opening with quiet local pride in Flint Vineyard Sparkling Rosé NV (£39), “strawberry” and “redcurrant” scented, before roaming further afield. Playful headings – “More or Less”, “Walk On The Wild Side”, “Low Intervention”, “Wines Given Time” – invite drinking by mood rather than denominational panic. There’s the “citrus” of a Grüner Veltliner from Arndorfer (£40), the “crunchy” Rioja Blanco from The Wine Love (£32), and the “cherries2 of Roc Ambulle pét-nat from Château Le Roc (£40) – all wines with character. Even the classics are chosen with care: a half-bottle of Gérard Tremblay Chablis (£28), or a generous 2018 Margaux from Ségla (£85), each priced with restraint.
Nearly 20 wines are poured by the 175ml glass, starting at £6.55 and seldom topping £10, making exploration both easy and encouraged. A juicy 2022 Portuguese red from Vidigal, a bony Muscadet, the saline Terras Gauda Albariño with “bay leaf” aromas – discovery without penalty. Here, no bottle, not even the magnums – Mimi Grande Réserve Rosé (£75) and Château Deville Bordeaux 2019 (£85) – breaks the £99 mark. This is personality without ego; a list which makes wine what it should be: enjoyable.
The Black Book offers occasional rarities – McRae Wood 2012 Clare Valley Shiraz (£88), Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Maison Bleue 2017 (£118), or Barros Colheita 1974 (£192). Behind the Games Room, an Enomatic tasting machine dispenses wines chosen for being new, exciting, or with a story to tell – an approach in the spirit of John Hoskins, the first Master of Wine from the restaurant trade to earn the title, whose team created what became Chestnut’s flagship at The Old Bridge. Finally, The Bottle Shop, relocated to The Grain Store, offers shelves of bottles – many not on the restaurant list – available to take home or, for modest corkage, to dinner.
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Dishes
Head chef, Scott Taylor may not say much about The Maltings’ pre-breakfast yoga sessions – though one suspects he’d admire the discipline, even if he prefers a strong coffee and a quiet prep list to sun salutations at dawn. As for the Verdant evenings, inspired by the new Connock England fragrance and infused with wild herbs, Norfolk woods and coastal air, he might raise an eyebrow but not a complaint. His cooking at The Grain Store follows a similar philosophy: rooted in place, being pared-back, and sensory.
If a guest hesitates over the list, Pinard, originally from Sancerre with wine in his veins and friends in the Bourgeois family, will fetch two bottles, pour blind tastes, and let the palate decide. For this dinner, he chose to make the pairing entirely French, personal to his heritage. As Taylor began service with the words, “my darlings, my lovers, we’re about to kick-off!”, we began with a supple, modestly proportioned beef tartare on toast freckled with baby capers, met by the humble Occitan of accent, Moulin de Gassac Pinot Noir 2024 from Famille Guibert – tartare and noir rhyming on the tongue.
Next, a half-bottle of Domaine des Berthiers Pouilly Fumé – uncomplicated, fresh, true – met a lavish fruits de mer platter of Cromer crab, thick-cut Brancaster salmon smoked by the wife of the chef at The White Horse, grilled prawns so sweet and delicate you could eat the shell without hesitation, and lobster from Wells with a provenance fit for a novelist’s prologue. That lobster returned for the next course, transformed into a sharing board of lobster Thermidor – the meat snowy white and moist, the pastry shiny and bronzed – paired to the dependable Gérard Tremblay Chablis 2023, the wine cutting through with clean, mineral intent.
As another guest thanked Pinard for his “empathy”, dessert was served: a lavish cheesecake paired with good value Domaine de Grange Neuve 2021 Monbazillac, the sugar of the pudding held in check so flavour, not sweetness, remained. Taylor has made real moves to lighten the cuisine.
Last Sip
Under the gaze of the dreamlike art of Shirin Tabeshfar, The Grain Store wears its welcome lightly – dogs under tables, children weaving between them, with a family barbecue in the garden – a place where formality never elbows out warmth, thanks in no small part to Pinard and Viktoria Jancsecz, the senior team who manage to be both attentive and entirely unforced. It is, in that sense, as open as the Norfolk light pouring through those vast windows. There was, however, one discordant note: a guest in one of the cottage rooms who chose to barricade her parking space with logs, as if bracing for a siege. In a village once armoured against German invaders, the effect was less quaint eccentricity than an oddly personal echo of the old defences.
Best for:
- Bottle shop and Enomatics
- Black Book
- Local ingredients
Value: 97, Size: 88, Range: 93, Originality: 96.5, Experience: 98; Total: 94.5
The Maltings Weybourne – The Street, Weybourne, NR25 7SY; 01263 804731; info@themaltingsweybourne.com; themaltingsweybourne.com / thebottleshops.com
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