Five dog-friendly places to eat in and around Norwich

We take the dog into Chapelfield Gardens intending to have a coffee. A bacon roll with black garlic ketchup and smoked Norfolk cheese intervenes, and the morning becomes less easily organised. Elsewhere in Norwich, a former bicycle shop puts sherry and tarragon into breakfast mushrooms; a pub beside the Wensum offers Polish sausage with fermented cucumber. Out at Stoke Holy Cross, we can bring the dog to a lunch that begins with lamb kofta and ends with white chocolate made into both bubbles and burnt “snow”.

There are conditions. Some of these tables need booking, one pub confines the canine visit to its courtyard, and the most ambitious kitchen on our list welcomes dogs at particular sittings. We have chosen five places with sufficiently interesting food and drink to justify working around those details. We gather up the lead and make room for lunch.

1. 33 In The Park

The address is the first useful decision. No33's original Exchange Street café has been feeding Norwich since 2006, but with the dog we head to its sister in Chapelfield Gardens. Here dogs can join us inside as well as on the terrace, with table reservations available. The original café directs dog owners this way because of its compact interior. We arrive through the park, settle beneath the trees and put the lead beside our chair. A booked table with the dog is a useful improvement on joining a queue at the wrong branch.

Nichola and Madelie, the owners, have built a family business around breakfast, coffee and baking. We order the Real Fancy Bacon Roll, £9, whose adjective turns out to be a warning about the amount going into the ciabatta. There is a poached egg, black garlic ketchup, onions both crisp and pickled, spinach and smoked Norfolk Dapple. We bring the plate closer and cut into it rather than attempt the whole thing one-handed while managing the lead. Pickled onion is the component we are particularly glad to see: with bacon, egg and cheese in the same bread, a little sharpness has work to do.

Norfolk Dapple deserves more attention than a passing reference to local cheese. Ferndale Farm makes it in Little Barningham, in north Norfolk; it is a firm cow's-milk cheese in the cheddar family, available here in its smoked form. That gives the roll a second savoury source of smoke, while the black garlic takes the ketchup towards sweetness. We can also see the case for the £6.50 bacon or sausage ciabatta. Someone wanting breakfast between dog walks need not acquire the entire collection of accompaniments.

Across the table, the naanwich, £12.90, takes us in another direction. Bacon and a fried egg share naan bread with spiced cream cheese, chilli jam and coriander chutney; masala beans and raita sit alongside. We tear off bread and use it with the beans. It is an exuberant treatment of breakfast, and suits an appetite for spice considerably better than an appetite for precision about national cuisines. For a vegan companion, the kitchen makes a corresponding naanwich with plant-based bacon and cream cheese. The separate vegan menu extends well beyond this one substitution.

Coffee remains our drink: a flat white is £3.90, and alternative milks carry no supplement. With the bacon roll that makes £12.90, before any further ambitions at the cake counter. The baking is done in the café's own kitchen, and mascarpone icing recurs through the cakes. Coffee and walnut, for example, takes its coffee into that icing as well as the sponge. We split a slice of the coffee and walnut, with the dog beside the table. Breakfast has already made a slice each seem unnecessary.

The terrace puts us directly in the park, with water bowls for dogs and blankets for cooler visits. The park branch earns our recommendation through the food as much as the space: it offers a properly considered breakfast, including for vegans, with somewhere for the dog to join in. Keep the dog on the lead in the gardens, and allow time to walk after eating. The café usually closes at four, extending to five on Saturdays. Book breakfast here when you want both a park walk and something more inventive than a fry-up.

Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich NR2 1NY.

2. The Bicycle Shop

Off St Benedicts Street, the Bicycle Shop welcomes us and the dog into a café whose name remembers the building's previous occupation. It has been a café since 2009, spreading over three floors, with a basement bar called the Handle Bar. That downstairs room has accommodated poetry, records and open-mic nights; there is more to the evening here than the reservation book. We find a table, bring the dog close and begin with the drinks. The café occupies a compact old shop, so mention a large dog when booking and ask for a table where it can lie without blocking the way.

Flint's Charmat rosé, £8.50 for 125ml, is an absorbing way to start. Flint is based at Earsham in south Norfolk, and the wine began with a problem familiar to any cook: what to do with the ingredients available. In 2017, a neighbouring vineyard offered four aromatic grape varieties suited to the English climate. The answer was sparkling wine made by the Charmat method, in which the second fermentation takes place in a tank. Prosecco uses this method too. Flint's first small release followed in 2018; the important idea was to use those particular grapes for their fruit and fragrance. Knowing that makes the glass more interesting: here is an English sparkling wine developed around the aromatic varieties that could be grown nearby.

To share, fried halloumi with chilli honey and frozen grapes, £9, and artichokes with romesco, the red-pepper sauce, also £9. The grapes are an unusually literal way to cool a plate containing chilli: fruit served cold enough to change the succession of mouthfuls. We alternate them with the salty cheese, keeping the dog's lead clear as the plates move around. Sweetness with halloumi is familiar; the temperature is the detail that makes us pay attention. The artichokes are the better second plate than another order of cheese, bringing a different vegetable and the savoury depth of peppers to the table.

For supper, we order the £21 harissa-roasted aubergine with kohlrabi, pearl barley, smoked tahini aioli and kale. Kohlrabi, a swollen cabbage stem eaten as a vegetable, is a useful companion to soft aubergine, while barley gives the dish something to chew. It is a complete vegan main assembled around vegetables, with sesame supplying richness. There is an important small-print distinction elsewhere: the miso broccoli includes bonito flakes, so that plate contains fish. The artichokes are the vegan choice of the two.

Supper sends us back to the wine list. The Notes Gamay is served chilled, £6.50 for 125ml; Waas Sémillon, a South African orange wine, is available in the same measure at the same price. Small pours make it possible to change direction without leaving several unfinished bottles between us. There is alcohol-free sparkling wine by the bottle too. We choose the chilled Gamay and leave the dog to settle beside us while we finish supper.

The Bicycle Shop earns our recommendation for a supper of unexpected combinations, from frozen grapes with halloumi to the choice of orange wine and chilled red. The trade-off is physical: a compact café with rooms on different levels asks for more consideration than a broad pub garden. We keep the lead short and choose our sitting accordingly. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the regular supper nights, with food until ten; Wednesday and Sunday are daytime affairs, and Monday and Tuesday are normally closed outside school holidays.

17 St Benedicts Street, Norwich NR2 4PE.

3. The Red Lion, Bishopgate

Beside Bishop Bridge, the Wensum supplies a persuasive reason to stop walking. The three-arched bridge dates from around 1340 onwards, still part of the working city rather than a monument we have to go looking for. The Red Lion beside it draws us indoors with the dog to a table, leaving the terrace for another visit. There is no need to bargain over which room will accept our companion: dogs are welcome throughout the premises. With a view of the river from the bar area and a conservatory as well as outdoor tables, this is a pub where choosing the comfortable seat can remain a human decision.

The first plate between us is kielbasa, £12.50, served with fermented cucumber, mustard mayonnaise and sourdough. Kielbasa is Polish sausage, and here it is treated as something to eat with pickles and bread. We put some cucumber beside a piece of sausage and use the bread to gather the mustard mayonnaise. The cucumber's sourness is essential to the appeal of the combination: something fermented and sharp against meat and a rich dressing. At a riverside pub, where a bowl of chips might otherwise be enough to detain us, it is a good reason to pay attention to the kitchen.

Head chef Dawid's menu ranges further than the pub frontage might suggest. Salmon receives a pastrami treatment, cod cheeks are paired with chorizo, and the more familiar mains include ox cheek with mash, carrots and beef sauce. We choose the cheek, £26.50, and pull the plate within reach. Ox cheek rewards a different kind of appetite from sirloin. A cheek does a great deal of work during the animal's life; it needs time in the kitchen. Mash makes sense beside it because the sauce is a substantial part of what we want to eat. We save some potato to draw through it.

The bill needs watching as attentively as the river. The two dishes together cost £39 before drinks, which puts our meal beyond a casual pub stop. That need not be everybody's lunch. A sausage roll with chutney and salad is £7; a few of the small snack plates can also make more sense for two people who chiefly want to sit by the water. Bringing a dog out for a walk does not always imply bringing ourselves out for three courses.

A glass of the Sicilian Nero d'Avola accompanies our beef. The wine list offers individual glasses well beyond the house selection, including Gavi, Rioja and Flint's Norfolk Bacchus Fumé. This matters at a table where one of us wants something with the meat and the other may still be occupied with fish: the choice need not collapse into a bottle that suits neither especially well. There is also a changing selection of real ales. Check the handpumps for the day's choice.

The dog lies beside us as we finish, within reach of the lead and away from the route between tables. We favour the Red Lion for the riverside setting and the choice between a small meal and something substantial, with the dog welcome at either. Reserve a riverside table if that is the point of the outing: when online booking shows only indoor seats, the outdoor allocation is already full. Some tables at the front and near the entrance are kept for walk-ins. Main meals begin at noon, with weekend brunch before that; an early dog walk can finish here without waiting for lunchtime.

79 Bishopgate, Norwich NR1 4AA.

4. The Unthank Arms

Out of the centre, Newmarket Street takes us through the residential streets of Norwich's Golden Triangle to the Unthank's courtyard with the dog. The proprietor's published guidance welcomes dogs here but excludes them from the bar. Plan an outdoor meal and confirm the arrangement when booking. The covered, heated courtyard gives us a little protection from the season. We settle the dog beside our chair and take off only as many layers as lunch requires.

Nick De'Ath has run the Unthank for more than thirty years. At this Victorian local, a weekday lunch has a particularly good argument in its favour. Two courses cost £22 between noon and 2.30pm, Monday to Friday. We choose mushrooms in a garlic, white-wine and cream sauce on sourdough, followed by pork-and-venison sausages. Taken separately from the main menu, those dishes cost £28.75. The saving leaves a useful contribution towards a drink, without reducing lunch to a sandwich.

We use the sourdough with the mushroom sauce while the dog stays at our feet. Garlic and cream ask relatively little of a diner except a willingness to follow them with more lunch. The two-course offer also includes the chicken Milanese: breaded chicken equipped with chips, a fried egg, truffle mayonnaise and Parmesan. It has enough additions to make us check that we are still reading the main course. We stay with the sausages.

Those sausages come from Swannington and combine pork with venison, accompanied by mash, minted cabbage, broccoli and gravy. Pork and venison are sensible partners in a sausage: the pork can supply fat to a leaner meat, rather than asking the deer to do the whole job. We cut a piece, bring potato and gravy together on the fork and give the green vegetables their share of attention. Mint gives the cabbage an aromatic role alongside the gravy. It is a more satisfying way to think about a vegetable than simply allocating it a corner of the plate.

The Riviera Pinot Noir, £7.25 for 175ml, is our choice with the sausages. The same wine comes in a half-litre carafe, £19.80, which is useful for two people sharing over a longer meal. There are four changing cask beers, too. The Unthank belongs to the same family of pubs as the Red Lion, and shares its willingness to offer wines in useful quantities. We keep the dog near the table as we move our glasses out of the way of the plates.

The cherry-and-tequila crumble persuades us to read the pudding list carefully. It is £9, with Solero ice cream, and sits outside the weekday set menu: the £5 third-course addition does not give us permission to choose any dessert we like. Tequila and a branded ice cream are a cheerful diversion from the expected custard. We share the crumble, having already made a reasonable commitment to lunch. For a courtyard lunch with the dog, the £22 offer is the reason to come: enough choice and enough food to make it worth departing from the centre. Save it for a day when eating outside appeals.

149 Newmarket Street, Norwich NR2 2DR.

5. The Wildebeest

Lunch in Stoke Holy Cross puts us and the dog at a table on the Wildebeest's front terrace. The sitting matters. Dogs are welcome for lunch and all day on Sunday, but not for dinner from Monday to Saturday; outside tables have no heaters and are used for dining only in fine weather. Specify the dog and agree the seating when booking. This former pub, just south of Norwich, asks for more planning than dropping in after a walk. In return, it offers the most ambitious lunch of our five visits, with a set menu that makes a serious case for coming during the day.

Chef-patron Daniel Smith worked at Le Gavroche, the Roux family's French restaurant in London, and under Galton Blackiston at Norfolk's Morston Hall before spending a decade at the Wildebeest. He left to open the Ingham Swan in 2010 and returned as an owner in 2015. The French training remains visible in the menu's veloutés, beignets and beurre blanc; the ingredients bring the meal back to East Anglia. We settle the dog beside the table and choose the menu du jour: £32 for two courses, £38 for three, with bread, butter and hummus included. The third course costs only £6 more than stopping after two.

Our starting point is lamb kofta with baba ganoush, smoked pepper, feta and black olive crumb. Baba ganoush is the aubergine preparation beneath this collection of smoke, salt and lamb; the olive brings another savoury element in a different texture. We draw a piece of kofta through it and use the bread with what remains. The interest is in how an ostensibly modest set lunch has been assembled, down to the form in which the olive appears. These are examples from a changing menu, so leave room for the kitchen to offer something different when you book.

For our main course, Blythburgh pork belly comes with crackling, hispi cabbage, squash, potatoes and mustard sauce. The pork comes from Suffolk, where the Blythburgh pigs are reared in outdoor herds. The pigs have continuing access to outdoor paddocks after weaning and grow to around twenty-five or twenty-six weeks. The producer's name tells us something about the life behind the meat. On our plate, mustard supplies the sharp seasoning that a fatty cut invites. We take pork, cabbage and sauce together, with the crackling kept as a separate, brittle mouthful. Montgomery's Cheddar beignets—cheese fritters—with beetroot and mushrooms offer another substantial main. The traditional cheese uses animal rennet, however, so vegetarians should request a suitable dish when booking.

We put the wine beside the bread and return to a list of more than two hundred bottles. Smith traces his interest in wine, and especially Burgundy, to his late father. The list also travels further: the separate tasting menu proposes a Peruvian Chardonnay with scallops and King's Lynn brown shrimp. The brown-shrimp fleet works the Wash, the broad bay between Norfolk and Lincolnshire; the wine brings Peru to the table. The five-course lunch is £65, with a £35 wine flight, and has to be taken by the whole table. It is the route for a longer occasion, provided everyone shares the appetite and the dog is comfortable settling through it; dietary adaptations are limited to vegetarian and pescatarian versions.

Staying with the three-course lunch leaves us room for honey panna cotta, blackberries, crème fraîche sorbet and white chocolate both aerated and prepared as burnt “snow”. We move the spoon between the components rather than heap everything together. The point of these preparations is the variation: soft set cream, cold sorbet, chocolate made light or finely broken, with blackberry to interrupt the sweetness. It is a pudding for someone who enjoys that kind of attention. A diner chiefly wanting a large slice of cake has already been well served elsewhere in this list.

The dog remains beside us while we finish, and we have spent £38 each on food before drinks and the optional ten per cent service charge. Our recommendation is the shorter lunch: it gives the kitchen room to show its technique, and gives us a choice of dishes and time for a walk afterwards. Cancellations within forty-eight hours, or failing to arrive, incur £25 per person. With the right sitting and an agreed dog table, the Wildebeest is the one to book when the meal itself is the reason for leaving Norwich.

82–86 Norwich Road, Stoke Holy Cross NR14 8QJ.