Sunday Roast Diaries: The Woodman Arms, Newcastle

I’m finally back with another Sunday Roast Diaries. I’ve also got quite a few others coming up so I can’t wait to share them with you! This weekend we had travelled up to Scotland for a wedding and we were faced with a five hour road trip home. To break up the journey, I booked in a Sunday Roast near Newcastle. This place had been on my list of places to try for the longest time. The Woodman Arms is located in Whickham, just on the outskirts of Newcastle. On arrival, we were faced with a jam packed car park, so we knew it was a very popular place!

The Woodman Arms is a family-owned gastro pub which also caters for weddings (there was one happening) and also has rooms to stay in. To be honest, everything we saw of the Woodman Arms was mega lovely. The restaurant was done out lovely with a floral archway and LED lights. It’s also pretty spacious and felt like it was going on & on when we were led to our seats. The pub has also won a fair few awards including an accolade for one of the UK’s best Pub Gardens in 2021.

Obviously, we were there for one thing only and that was their Sunday Roast. When researching places to visit in the North East, The Woodman Arms is one that kept popping up. The menu offers options for Vegetarians and those who are Gluten Free. The Sunday menu also did have a special menu item of Fish & Chips and a selection of Starters. The options for Sunday Roast mains were Roast Chicken, Beef Sirloin, Beef Brisket, Pork Belly, Gammon, Lamb Shoulder and a Nut Roast. So a huge variety of meats, it’s one of the biggest selection of places we’ve visited! The Roasts are priced at either £14.95 or £15.95 so also pretty reasonable.

Stefan and I both went for Beef Brisket at £14.95 and whilst this did come with a selection of veg, we also ordered sides of Buttered Mash and Cauliflower Cheese. As always, I used the blog as an excuse for over ordered – We need to try it all right?!

The Beef Brisket was served with Roast Potatoes, Carrots, Parsnips, Carrot & Swede Mash, a Yorkshire pudding and a sharer bowl of Broccoli and Green Cabbage. I really also really impressed that we also had a jug of gravy too – This always gains extra points for me. And then we obviously we had our extras of the Buttered Mash and Cauliflower Cheese. As you can image, it was a lot of food and a great selection of accompanying veg.

The meat was amazing with the Beef Brisket melting as I cut it. I was also a big fan of the Buttered Mash and Cauliflower Cheese. They were both a great addition to the meal. I’ve got to say the Roasties and Yorkshire Pudding were a slight let down. Roasties wasn’t anything exceptional with no crisp to them and the Yorkshire Pudding had the potential to be great but were quite hard as if it had been sat for a while. However, on a whole it was pretty strong Roast Dinner. There was plenty of food with the portions been great and we absolutely loved the vibe of the restaurant. It was just the Roasties and Yorkshire Pudding which let it down otherwise it would’ve been up there.

I’d still love to go back to the Woodman Arms, the whole restaurant was a great atmosphere. If we’re ever in the area again, we’d certainly try and make the effort to re-visit and potentially go for an evening meal and try their standard meal. I can see why The Woodman Arms is popular amongst locals and in the North East in general.

Keep your eyes peeled for a few more Sunday Roast Diaries posts which will be coming soon! I’ve got a few exciting ones booked!