TRADITIONAL home-cooked food and a cosy log fire are a few fresh treats at the Wyke Smugglers, thanks to new ownership.

The popular Weymouth pub has recently seen some significant changes including a new candlelit dining area, a menu overhaul and two new chefs offering signature dishes.

New owners Dave and Tori Lane and Rhos Thompson say they are delighted to take the reins from what has been their local pub for eight years.

The team say their new business venture was inspired by the ambition to bring ‘pub grub with a traditional feel’ back to Weymouth.

The pub retains its traditional atmosphere with home-cooked food made from scratch seven days a week, including a mouth-watering Sunday carvery.

Dave says that a pub signature dish and best seller is the ‘drunken pig’; a belly of pork soaked in cider for 24 hours before being slowly roasted.

He added that other delights on the menu include homemade scotch eggs and hand-prepared salt beef sandwiches.

There is also a great selection of real ales available which have already been praised by regulars.

Customers have always been attracted to the pub with its feel of community spirit, which is now sure to welcome even more as both children and dogs are welcome with no time restrictions.

All these new offerings have all been given a thumbs-up by both regulars and tourists.

The latest owners have also been praised by Dorchester’s Michelin-starred chef Russell Brown, who says simple, fresh and local is the intention for the new pub menus – and that Dave has ‘all the skills and determination to deliver’.