The New Moon

This month we sent food-lover and events manager extraordinaire Sam Harrington-Lowe along to The New Moon to indulge in a lunchtime feast.

Tell us about the pub
The New Moon in Storrington is well placed on a busy main street and is a great combination of traditional pub values and quality food. A busy bustling place at the weekends, it also offers a cosy week day retreat for lunchtimes, hosting a busy daytime trade consisting of everything from local business workers to ladies that lunch, to groups of friends and cosy couples. It’s a country pub with a contemporary outlook

The landlord, Richard Messenger, has been at the helm for over 11 years and has an innate understanding of his clientèle, keeping up with the changing needs of his customers. The staff are friendly and welcoming and the overall experience of eating in the pub is relaxed and engaging

What’s the food like?
Italian influenced, on the comfortable side of gastro-pub cuisine, nothing too poncy, but with an eye on the discerning diner. The portions are extremely generous and well presented - you definitely won’t go hungry. It’s happy food.

Recently Richard has added an Italian lunchtime pizza, pasta and salad bar, which is a flat rate of £5.95 per person and is an ‘eat all you like’ setup. I say lunchtimes, it’s actually available weekday lunchtimes, all day Saturday, and Sunday evenings from 5-9.30pm.

What did you eat?
We thought it best to try a few options, so being a chilly day we started with Minestrone soup ‘New Moon style’ (£3.95). Rich, thick and packed with vegetables, and served with a hunk of crusty French bread and fresh parmesan, this is almost an embarrassment of riches at the price, and definitely enough for a light main course. For the main course, we followed our host’s recommendations and went for Fettucine with chilli & crab – flakes of crab in a light creamy tomato sauce, flavoured with chilli oil and white wine (£7.95/£4.75) - and Sirloin Steak - cooked to your liking and served with gorgonzola and mushroom sauce (£9.95). The pasta was a heavenly pile of seaside-flavoured comfort food, rich, sticky and packed with crab, and the steak was well-cooked, the sumptuous sauce in a separate boat and definitely not for the light eater - it’s enough to put a big smile on any carnivore’s face. Cubed potatoes came separately (£1.50) and again, an extremely generous portion.

We did manage to have a stab at the salad bar, which is a great option as a side order, although the range and variety and freshness makes it hard not to go nuts and end up with another heaped plate. But hey, we managed to work through it bravely for the purposes of this review. Unfortunately we were unable to shoehorn any kind of dessert in, very disappointed about that, my dining companion staring forlornly at the options and thinking sadly about his expanding waistline... but we left the pub feeling warm, happy and well-fed.

Anything else to know?
The pub is undergoing a re-brand around April/May, becoming just simply The Moon, and as the warmer months approach, there will be a new al fresco dining area outside, which will marry well with the Mediterranean feel of the menus. There are other events at the pub such a live music and there’s a Facebook group, which will aim to keep information on this and other aspects such as changing menus, so to keep in touch, join the group, become a fan!

Tel: (01903) 744773
W:  www.thenewmoonpub.net
Opening hours: Mon-Weds 11am-11pm  |  Thurs-Sat 11am-12midnight  |  Sun 12noon-11pm.

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