The Bull & Swan Stamford – Pizza, Pinot & A Picture Show

It can be a bit difficult to find fun things to do with friends, or a partner on a “school night”, things that are a bit different from the norm. But this summer, The Bull and Swan Stamford have got your Thursday nights covered.

One of my best friends Abi lives in Stamford and it’s the natural meeting place when some of us meet up as it’s the half way point for us all at the opposite ends of the spectrum. So when The The Bull & Swan Stamford got in touch and asked if I would like to pop along for one of their evenings, I had the perfect people in mind to accompany me.

The Bull and Swan is one pub I’d never been to in Stamford, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But we had a list of dates to choose from where they had a different film playing each night in their recently renovated Courtyard turned Garden Kitchen. The Pizza Potting Shed is open to dine on Thursday, Friday & Saturday 6 – 9 pm and Sunday 12 – 6 pm (weather permitting), with Thursdays being an outdoor cinema night, with a different film played weekly. Once we scanned our diaries and checked the upcoming showings, it wasn’t a hard decision that we’d be going to see Bridemaids. A firm favourite of all of ours.

Once we arrived, we were given a warm and friendly welcome and we decided to reserve ourselves a pew on one of the L-shaped sofas at the front and grabbed some of their blankets to keep ourselves warm and toasty as it was a slightly chilly night in early May. They also had some deck chairs which were perfect for smaller groups and making the most of the space.

A little wander around their Kitchen Garden, where they have raised veg patches, a greenhouse in the corner and cute flowering pots everywhere. But most importantly tucked in the corner was the Pizza Potting shed.

The Pizza Potting shed is where they make pizzas fresh before being put into a pizza oven and baked fresh, before being dressed with fresh rocket, and drizzled with accompanying oils and toppings. Our audible gushing over chorizo was taken note of by the head chef who gave us an extra helping of our favourite food to eat together (chorizo fan club) on our pizzas. The pizza options were quite limited and that would be my one comment that a couple of other of options may go down well with others – however we loved the two options. A tasty salami, prosciutto and chorizo meaty feast, and vegetarian option with goats cheese.

Pizzas were priced at £12 each or 2 for £20, with a host of ‘P’ drinks on the menu too, predominately the popular choices for post seemed to be glasses or bottles of Pinot, Prosecco and Peroni. The Pizzas were absolutely delicious handmade to order and baked and delivered fresh to our sofa in a takeaway box, which was practical for eating off our knees.  But as we tucked into our pizzas our conversation turned into silence as the food was so food we didn’t want to do anything but gobble it down as it was so delicious.

The movie started at around 7.30 and we enjoyed a bottle of wine between us whilst the film began playing, and the laughs started rolling in for the film we all knew so well. As the dark drew over the courtyard, bulb festoon lights over the vegetable patches light up and the atmosphere feels so cosy.

On a warm night I can’t imagine a better setting for an evening – both with friends or for a date there’s movies through the season for every occasion. The nicer the weather the more busy I imagine the seating area gets though, so I’d recommend you get there as early as possible for getting a good seat, I arrived at 6, and by 6.15 when we were sitting down, we had grabbed the last sofa before the film started at 6.30. Familiess need not feel discluded as the Sunday showings at 1pm are more kid-friendly (or just disney fans in general), with the Lion King, Cinderella, Princess Diaries, Cinderella and Anastasia all on the cards for May’s Sunday showings.

The Garden Cinema nights are running until the end of September. You can view the movie schedule on their website here, each month has a theme and the rest of May sees a Royal Wedding theme. If you’re in the South Lincolnshire, Rutland and Peterborough area, this is a lovely setting for a Thursday evening with a twist.

I was kindly gifted this experience in exchange for a review. All thoughts and experiences are my own.

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