Sudbury’s Gainsborough’s House hands reins for Watering Place café to Newmarket-based Stellar Catering

A museum celebrating Sudbury’s most famous son has enlisted the help of a catering company on the rise, to take the reins at the venue’s on-site café.

The Watering Place at Gainsborough’s House staged a soft relaunch event in December to mark the beginning of a new era under the management of Stellar Catering.

Serving breakfast and lunch seven days a week, the café is now seeking to expand into evening events, with bespoke menus planned to match upcoming exhibitions at the art gallery.

It is the latest venture to fall under the umbrella of the Newmarket-based catering company, which started life in the kitchen of professional chef Ben Cockhill, after he was made redundant following the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

The business has since expanded significantly, running The Bakery at the National Horseracing Museum and catering for public or private events – and Ben said he was excited by the new collaboration with Gainsborough’s House.

“We’ve taken over The Watering Place as the new occupants, and are expanding upon what was previously on offer,” he told SuffolkNews.

“The director of the museum actually reached out to us, and headhunted us to take this position at Gainsborough’s House.

“We had the soft launch just before Christmas, and we had some really great feedback.”

As part of the collaboration, The Watering Place has lined up special menus for events – the first of which being Burns Night on January 25, where it will serve traditional Scottish dishes with a modern twist.

Ben added that, in the future, they hope to make increased use of the facilities at the gallery, including the outdoor garden area.

“I would like to utilise the other spaces at the museum,” he said. “Instead of being a 9-to-5 café, we want to be a 9am to 9pm operation that reaches out to all clientele. The most important thing is that we want to be accessible to all.”