The best restaurants-with-rooms in the UK
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The past decade has seen the evolution of Britain’s inns. Now a stay in the countryside is a sensitively seasoned experience as chefs serve up locally rooted feasts attached to cutting-edge sleepovers. From a 17th-century farmhouse in Kent, to a former blacksmith’s workshop in Cumbria, here are the UK’s most exciting restaurants-with-rooms.
- Issy Croker
Boys Hall, Kent
In a lot of ways, Boys Hall – a country pile built in 1616, meticulously renovated and opened as a hotel in 2023 – feels vaster and more widereaching than your average restaurant with rooms. There's the gorgeous sky-lit restaurant, of course (more on that later); a garden terrace; a bar and a sweet little boozer tucked around the back. The team runs workshops in painting, floristry and ceramics and created a wine, the Penstock Classic Cuvée, exclusively for use here.
Then there's the property itself: built by aristocrat Thomas Boys in the early 17th century, it's a gorgeous mish-mash of old and new – restored beams and gloriously wonky ceilings jutting up against a toasty autumnal palette that brings things up to the minute. The overall vibe is incredibly relaxed. There's a little den downstairs where you might play board games by firelight (or catch five minutes shut-eye, as one gentleman was doing when we visited), and on sunny afternoons, long lunches spill onto the terrace and into the later afternoon.
Life here ultimately revolves around eating and drinking. The team are passionate about spotlighting local produce, cooking with the best that Kent has to offer, from Owley Farm mushrooms (grown on the Kent/Sussex border) to beef from Chart Farm down the road in Sevenoaks. Lunch or supper might include heritage tomato soup with a cheese toastie followed by short rib beef and butter beans, or – for the plant-based among us – coal-roasted beetroot tart and heritage carrot with sherry caramel. Sunday roasts include meat sourced from Chart Farm or nearby Marsh Farm, which are cooked over fire and served with bone marrow gravy. Even the cocktail menu skews local, using spirits such as White Cliffs gin from local distillery Pleasant Land or Vela vodka from Copper Rivet distillery.
Leisurely suppers – if the weather's good, nab a table outside, but if not, the light-filled dining room is just as gorgeous – are best followed by a short wobble to one of the gorgeous bedrooms upstairs. We stayed in the Bishops Quarter, one of the newer additions, which has glossy original 16th-century panelling, a supremely comfortable window seat overlooking the gardens and a deep, golden bathtub that makes for the perfect pre-dinner getting-ready experience. Don't leave the following morning without breakfast: the continental options are included in your stay, with the option to order as much or as little as you want. Sarah James
Address: Boys Hall, Boys Hall Road, Willesborough, Ashford TN24 0LA
Price: from £190 per person - Fjona Hill
Grace & Savour at Hampton Manor, Solihull
As a Midlands local, I take no issue with the fact that we're not frontrunners in the luxury hotel scene – or even a place one often thinks to visit, other than Shakespeare enthusiasts visiting Stratford-upon-Avon. So it’s fair to say I was pleasantly surprised pulling up to Hampton Manor, an old English country pile with original stained glass windows and wooden flooring, sitting among 45 acres of lush, manicured gardens. Guests can either stay in the manor itself, in the pretty onsite four-bedroom cottage or in a modern garden suite just a few steps from the well-kept walled garden.
A stay at Hampton Manor is all about the glorious food, so arrive hungry and prepare for a spell of indulgence that revolves around lapping up the best produce the UK has to offer. To kick things off, we were welcomed to our suite with locally made vermouth and a small bowl of leek emulsion topped with smoked onion powder. This was followed by a garden tour by chef-director David Taylor, who talked us through the farming and cultivating techniques, including how to stop the crows from nicking the juicy cherries and how to ferment a rhubarb stem in lactose to create a citrus taste. Next up, a free wine tasting with in-house sommelier Max. Food-focused activities take place at midday, giving guests a chance to learn more about the importance of the products used on the estate.
A 14-16 course tasting menu is served in Michelin-starred Grace & Savour at 7pm, Wednesday to Saturday. Enjoyed by hotel guests and well-dressed locals, it’s all eyes pointing towards the kitchen where David and his team immaculately plate up each course over four hours. Tiny flowers are placed into drops of honey using tweezers, intricate appetisers are sprayed with liquid flavourings, and scallops are grilled on an open BBQ, all for guests to see. Chefs are also seen running to the walled garden to pick produce during meal service – could it get fresher? Each dish, plated up in the most creative of ways, is delivered along with a backstory as to where the ingredients came from around the UK by Anette Taylor (David’s wife) and her team of knowledgeable staff. It's only at the end of the dining experience the menu is revealed. We rolled over to our suite for a glorious night's sleep, awakened at 9am to an in-room wicker breakfast hamper of freshly baked sourdough, cured meats, local cheese and sourberry jam. We spent the morning learning how to make cinnamon buns with in-house baker Kelly, followed by lunch at Hampton Manor's second restaurant, Smoke. When the sun is shining, diners fill the greenhouse covered in grapevines; faced with rain, it’s better to sit in the cosy wooden dining room. Meals here are much larger, heartier and carefree but just as tasty. Sophie Knight
Address: Hampton Manor, Shadowbrook Lane, Hampton in Arden, Solihull B92 0EN
Price: from £360 per person Retreat East, Suffolk
Squirrelled away amid the deep green lanes of Suffolk is Retreat East, a 16th-century brick farmhouse and barns all beautifully converted to rooms by place maker Dominic Richards in 2017. The soul of this hideaway is found in the restaurant, the Great Barn, a beamed replica of a tithe barn, flooded with light, and cosy with sofas in front of a log fire. In midsummer 2022, a new chef arrived. Adam Spicer, schooled in sustainability, has shaken up the kitchen garden, produce sourcing, food waste recycling, and, of course, the menu. Spicer, previously of the Tack Room in Newmarket, and All Saints in Bury where he was awarded two rosettes by the AA guide, became a finalist on MasterChef: The Professionals in 2019 when 6,000 aspiring chefs applied.
Discarded pea pods infuse a Retreat East gin, beetroot skin is crushed and powdered to make gnocchi, and beetroot leaves and stems are pickled to accompany a venison dish. Spicer’s focus is on dishes rooted in local produce. Pork arrives by way of famed Suffolk Dingley Dell, and beef from Lincoln Reds which chew the cud on water meadows at Yarn Hill Farm near Woodbridge.
A humid summer’s evening demands a cool drink. A crushed-ice elderflower-flecked daiquiri with lemon verbena and Havana Club white rum arrived swiftly. Several more, to keep up with Hemingway’s habit, would have been very welcome. Little piles of peas, topped with blue borage, climb a tiny tartlet scattered with truffle shavings adding a umami depth-charge to this dinky dish, a pre-starter snack. Soft sweet figs, from the tree outside the Great Barn, sit in a dark shallow pool of red wine, balsamic vinegar, and pomegranate molasses alongside heritage tomatoes, pickled half-mooned grapes, and candied walnuts which recall popcorn days on a pier. This starter is an absolute winner. It’s followed by delicate Suffolk white bass, with a lightly crisped skin, served in a small jungly lake of warm tartare sauce with salmon caviar and a side of Pommes Anna ‘chips, a flipbook of mandolin-sliced potato dusted in samphire powder. The brie-like Baron Bigod, a clear-your-schedule-for cheese, courtesy of the contented Montbeliarde cows at Fen Farm Dairy in Beccles, is joined by a warm figgy brown butter tart layered with truffle honey. I couldn’t resist a portion of sea buckthorn sorbet, a quenelle of tangerine colour that tasted salty, tart, of coastal breeze. I Google where to buy the orange berry.
It’s handy all 28 Retreat East rooms are nearby. I stay in the Piggery, its ancient timbers exposed, now encased in new wood and beams. Pale pamment floors lead through to the bedroom with its salmon-pink and grey curtained bed plumped with cushions of candy pink and lemon yellow. Deep sofas face a log burner, and there’s a mini kitchen, too. On the travel trunk-turned-coffee table is a hamper of goodies from local producers – Pump Street Chocolate, Fairfields Farm Crisps and Maynard House apple juice. Those will definitely have to wait. Then with breakfast served outside on the vine-draped terracing, and a spa for treats, plus a new tasting menu, and foraging workshops in the plans, those two hours on the journey from London won’t pass quick enough. Claire Boobbyer
Address: Brick Kiln Farm, Sandy Lane, Hemingstone, Suffolk, IP6 9QE
Price: Double rooms start from £130- Rebecca Dickson
The Suffolk Sur-Mer, Aldeburgh
Tucked behind a pebble beach amid the pretty pastel-painted Victorian homes of trendy Aldeburgh is new Sur-Mer. What originally began as a Covid escape plan from London for Soho’s L’Escargot co-partner and staff in the first summer of lockdowns, is now a permanent Suffolk move. Lovers of seafood, fans of locavore cuisine, and cocktail connoisseurs should book toute suite. The restaurant heaves already with those who’ve found their way to the door in the tiny passage betwixt town and sea.
George Pell’s move from London’s oldest French restaurant, known for its Gallic flair and flavour, to Suffolk’s elemental coast isn’t a reflection of Soho in Aldeburgh. Pell, and head chef James Jay, formerly of The Anchor in Woodbridge, have crafted a homage to Suffolk’s coastal bounty with simple curated dishes infused with the taste of the sea, and using exceptional fare from the land.
Sur-Mer’s cocktail menu is ridiculously seductive. Its margarita is pimped up by Sea Buckthorn, a marmalade-orange berry fond of a seaside perch. It’s tart and irresistible. The silkiest of oysters from the river creek near Orford come courtesy of Butley Creek Oysterage, a family who have farmed the mollusc since the 50s. A cool, crisp glass of Laurent Perrier to accompany, a treat. Buttery razor clam dimpled with caviar is followed by diver-caught pan-seared Devon scallops bathed in their shell in a rich jus of nuada made from Duroc Red pigs from Suffolk’s Dingley Dell Pork. Native lobster, collected five miles off the coast as the crow flies, comes soft fleshed, and sunk in a delicious lake of butter swimming in garlic. If you’ve room, the soft tarte au citron is outstanding. But the real winner is a dish made with Suffolk’s superlative brie-like Baron Bigod, made a few short miles away. The pungent cheese is taken down a notch as it’s whipped with cream, then smoothed over a dainty basket of game chips, and topped by hoops of crispy shallot and tiny dollops of pear chutney.
The welcome at Sur-Mer is warm, and attention to service flawless, amid the oak tables, herring-bone wooden floor, sea blue banquettes, and scallop shade wall lamps diffusing a soft light. All we needed was to be able to climb the stairs to the bedroom with the bay sash window overlooking the sea. Pillows with views will welcome guests by late September. By late 2022, The Suffolk – a recrafting of a 17th-century timbered building – will welcome guests to a wine bar, private dining rooms, and a rooftop terrace with views of the sea, jolly jumble of chimney pots, and fishing boats at rest. Claire Boobbyer
Address: 152 High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5AQ
Price: Double rooms start from £160
- Beth Evans
Boath House, Nairn
Under the direction of Florence Knight and Jonny Gent (the duo responsible for critically acclaimed Sessions Art Club in London), Inverness’ Boath House has been transformed from a rapidly ageing country house hotel into a creative sanctuary. Here all manner of interesting people come to escape real life for a night or two, and while they’re at it enjoy their fair share of sharing plates. The Garden Cafe serves up a short but sharp billing of seasonal creations that might start with lightly cured, smoked trout before meandering through please-alls like steak, chips and béarnaise or scallops, glazed and sticky and served with apple and kohlrabi. Breakfast comes as a flurry of old school treats. Think porridge and jam or Scottish butteries - little flaky rounds somewhere between a pancake and a croissant served with butter and preserves. While the food might make up much for the draw, there are other merits here to bring you so far north. A wood fired sauna by an ice cold stream for one, and the perfect mix of manicured walled gardens with corners of maintained wilderness beyond the confines of the bricks and mortar for seconds. Rooms are bright and airy, and spotlessly clean, and the service is so warm you might wish you’d booked for longer.
Address: Auldearn, Nairn IV12 5TE
Price: £250 per night, for bed and breakfast for two people - William Bunce
Updown, Deal, Kent
Let’s start by getting one thing straight – Updown is so much more than a restaurant with rooms. Set within a 17th-century, Grade II-listed farmhouse near trendy seaside town Deal, owners Ruth Leigh and Oli Brown have spent time lovingly restoring the property to include seven rooms and two cottages.
While renovations were taking place, chef Oli (founder of Brixton pop-up Duck Duck Goose) has been serving up hyper-seasonal fare for eager diners from the al-fresco kitchen on Friday evenings and Sunday lunchtimes. The restaurant is a whimsical Secret Garden-style space – overlooking the lawns and the farmhouse beyond, the vine-covered pergola and festoon lighting creates a romantic, rustic setting. Arrive 20 minutes early for an Updown Cooler before dinner and enjoy the wood-fired wafts coming from the kitchen as the insects hum and the light dims.
The menu is small, ever-changing and celebrates local producers. We ate sea bass ceviche slicked with olive oil and topped with slices of cherry, spaghetti vongole with clams (“we get to the fishmonger early to get the best ones!” Ruth says), and perfectly pink veal with tangy tomatoes and beans.
Breakfast is a special affair – sat at a white linen-covered table on the lawn and surrounded by the sounds of wood pigeons, we tucked into buttery scrambled eggs, tomatoes that make you vow to never buy yours from the supermarket ever again, and chewy chunks of sourdough.
The rooms are the latest addition – cosy, comfortable and eclectic, they mirror the stylish farmhouse with carefully selected vintage furniture, pops of colourful artwork and the comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in (Ruth tells me later that the mattress was by far the most important element for her, so she spent a lot of time researching the perfect one – it paid off).
I left Updown feeling as though I’d been away for much longer than a night, and with a resolution to cook all future dinners in the garden over an open fire – let’s hope my East London neighbours don’t mind. Sarah Allard
Address: Updown, Updown Road, Betteshanger, Deal CT14 0EF
Price: Double rooms start from £250 The Hand and Flowers, Marlow
Kitted out with Chesterfield sofas and antique trunks, the bar here is full of locals drinking pints of ale, as well as out-of-towners (more likely to be sipping sparkling wine from Sussex) every night of the week. Having previously cooked in a handful of London’s fine-dining spots including Bellamy’s, Tom Kerridge opened his first solo venture on the site of a local boozer of the same name with his wife Beth in 2005. Look up and you’ll spot a Michelin Man tucked into a beam in the ceiling. It’s the only pub in the UK to hold two Michelin stars, winning the first within a year of opening.
Bedrooms, added much later, are unconventionally not upstairs but dotted across three cottages, with a driver to ferry visitors to and from the restaurant. And while they are sweet, with roll-top baths and home-made lavender pillow spray, it’s the pub you’ve come for.
The ceilings here are so low that tall diners have to duck under them, the wooden furniture is worn and there isn’t a tablecloth in sight. First up is a bucket of crispy whitebait with Marie Rose sauce. Slices of thick-cut bread fried in beef dripping are rich but cut through by mustard butter, brown sauce, griddled gem lettuce and a fried quail’s egg. A fillet of beef is topped with onion rings and served with chips that look like cylindrical cheesy Wotsits. Back in your room there’s a hamper filled with hot malted milk and whoopie-pie biscuits – two dark-chocolate cookies sandwiched together with a butter cream. Kerridge has succeeded in creating an unpretentious menu while ramping things up a notch at an established village classic. If you only try one thing The smoked-haddock omelette served in a cast-iron skillet, light as a soufflé but oozing with Parmesan. Tabitha Joyce
Address: The Hand and Flowers, 126 West Street, Marlow SL7 2BP
Price: About £180 for two; doubles from £240- John Carey
The Wife of Bath, Kent
Hop on a train from London and you can be in the village of Wye (of Kent, rather than of Hay) in roughly an hour and a half. This Grade II-listed redbrick building with smart grey windows is an eight-minute walk from the station. While it might look too small to house both a restaurant and rooms from the outside, it is surprisingly big inside, with wooden beams that both hang low (watch your head upstairs) and soar high into a lofty vaulted ceiling.
Bought in 2016 by chef Mark Sargeant of Rocksalt Restaurant in Folkestone and The Duke William Pub in nearby Ikham, it has refreshed and punchy interiors, with boho floral teacups and saucers in the rooms, wide plump beds and grey walls, broken up by bold abstracts in black frames. The details give away Sargeant’s sense of humour; there's a ceramic bust with a drawn-on moustache and spectacles in the Sir Thopas superior king room, and a stocked pantry in the corridor, rather than any mini-bars. (Although, you’re unlikely to even creak open its door.)
Because – as satisfying as the digs are – this is, above all, a restaurant with rooms. Spanish flavours created with local ingredients dance through the dishes with flare. Opt for the tasting menu to take the full tour – and to make the mightiest thud when you collapse backwards in your bed upstairs afterwards; alternatively, stick to the tiny tapas bar to make a lighter one. Stand-outs include the spiced crab, apple and cucumber served in an oyster shell with a spoon, and the crispy pork belly with morcilla and peas, all washed down with predominantly Spanish wine.
Breakfast is equally Mediterranean and innovative – the picante chorizo and Manchego scones served with home-churned butter and padrón peppers are worth the wait for them to bake. They’ll also set you up nicely for a stomp through the glorious countryside outside – or a lazy mooch around the weekly farmers' market, followed by a Sunday drink at a table by the river at The Tickled Trout, conveniently located next to the station. Just remember to catch your train. Becky Lucas
Address: The Wife of Bath, 4 Upper Bridge Street, Wye, Ashford, Kent, TN25 5AF
The Black Swan, Olstead, Yorkshire
From the outside this place looks like a traditional countryside inn, but you’d be a bit confused if you walked in expecting to find a pint and a packet of scratchings. Inside there are Afghan rugs, worn leather benches and flagstone floors, as well as home-brewed rhubarb schnapps in glass jugs, a demijohn of lemon verbancello and shelves lined with jars of pickled spruce and fermented woodruff.
Upstairs, the simple Scandinavian-style dining room is kitted out with tables that look like tangled tree trunks, carved by Tom senior. Starters could include a mouthful of smoked eel and apple, or an exploding dumpling of ox cheek and lovage. A crapaudine beetroot slow-cooked in beef fat is meaty in texture as well as flavour, and local lamb is paired with turnip and mint.
Afterwards you’ll be grateful for the walk through the village to a pretty rose-covered house where some of the nine bedrooms have antique oak four-posters and copper bateau baths. Wake to the sound of cows mooing in the next field and head back to the inn for a simple breakfast of sheep’s yogurt with fresh berry compote and house granola or toasted brioche heaped with mushrooms and a duck egg. Unsurprisingly, the most talked about restaurant in Yorkshire is often full, so book it quick. Tabitha Joyce
Address: The Black Swan, Oldstead, York, North Yorkshire, YO61 4BL
Price: double rooms from £390 including dinner- Anna Mockford/Mockford & Bonetti
Inver, Scottish Highlands
Since 2015 a young couple has been renovating, reimagining and running the Inver – moving from Mull with their vinyl and pans and books, some of which fill the shelves and ledges at the entrance to the restaurant. There are four en-suite bothys for restaurant guests that sit on a promontory over a little bridge, each made from yellow Scottish larch and blonde birch that looks like it’s been coaxed into the shape of cresting waves. At lunchtime on a clement day walkers and visitors sit outside the restaurant with their dogs, eating fresh crab and bread, the 18th-century ‘new’ Castle Lachlan just beyond in a field plump with high grass, its white stones glimmering like something from a Ladybird book of clans and maidens. The restaurant in the evenings takes on a sweet glamour, with a fire in the stove, diners occasionally getting up to flick through records and stick something on the turntable, while over at the ruins, in the gathering darkness, an osprey is so still and watchful he seems to be praying.
Seafood (and local lamb) dominates an exquisite menu – oysters and scallops from the loch, mackerel and herring caught (says the chef) ‘by a neighbour who drops them in after fishing with his kids’. Everything you use or touch in the restaurant and bothys is made locally or by crafty friends. The knobbly crockery is by Rebecca Proctor; soaps and shampoos, infused with nettle and bog myrtle, come from a company in Kirkintilloch that’s been going for 100 years. Sheepskins by the lavishly peaceful king-sized beds are the caramel colour of Highland cattle. If I could live in that bothy, I would.
The scene outside, viewed through immense picture windows, is so full of colour and incident (whatever the weather) that it seems to belong to an earlier era of tourism; something painted by Horatio McCulloch. Herons, celandines and tormentil. Seams of snow on far mountains. The speck of one small boat in the bay. The almost eerily fast movement of iridescent tidal water across the marshes at around 10am suddenly filling the view, cream waterlillies poking from wet soil. Swallows swoop and circle. You sit staring as if under hypnosis. Thankfully, checkout is sympathetically late. Antonia Quirke
Address: Inver Restaurant, Strathlachlan, Strachur, Argyll & Bute, Scotland PA27 8BU
The Bower House, Warwickshire
Historically, the pretty market town of Shipston-on-Stour in the northern Cotswolds was where people drove their sheep to be washed. Today, it’s better known for its independent shops. The excellent Bower House sits in the middle of it all, on the corner of High Street and Market Place. Owner Andrew Knight, ex-editor of The Economist, whose wife Marita re-launched nearby foodie pub The Howard Arms in 2016, has lived in the area for 25 years and always felt the one thing it lacked was a really good restaurant. When two shops closed down next to his deli, he seized the opportunity to open one. The elegant interiors and art were overseen by Liana Braune, previously curator at London’s Museum of Everything.
Walls are part exposed brick, part wood-panelled, with leather banquettes in bold shades of peacock and viridian. Come here for honest, rustic French food with extraordinary character and flavour. Highly recommended dishes include the starter of shallot crumble with horseradish cream, the tender lamb rump with potato gratin and the crunchy fish and chips. Go sophisticated for dessert with red-wine-poached Agen prunes or finger-licking with an Eton Mess. This is intended to be a neighbourhood restaurant where locals pop in for brunch or get dressed up for supper on a Saturday night, but of course it draws city dwellers too.
Upstairs are five elegant bedrooms, one with an additional little bunk room for children. All have glorious wallpapers and fabrics by Timorous Beasties, House of Hackney and Barneby Gates. Even the smallest has a free-standing cast-iron tub. There are also vintage books on the bedside table and a drinks trolley stocked with small-batch Cotswolds gin. At the helm are chef Paul Merrony and Tracey Petersen (front of house) whose antipodean charm helps to create the slick but relaxed atmosphere. Francesca Syz
Address: The Bower House, Market Place, Shipston on Stour, CV36 4AG
- Cristian Barnett
L'Enclume, Cumbria
Five miles south of Lake Windermere, the tiny village of Cartmel has become an unexpected foodie mecca thanks to chef Simon Rogan and his flagship three-Michelin-star restaurant, L’Enclume. Since opening in 2002 in a former blacksmith’s workshop, the operation has expanded to include a bakery out the back, a farm down the road growing organic fruit, vegetable, herbs and flowers, Aulis, a development kitchen with a chef’s table, and 16 bedrooms. The biggest of these are the two suites above Cartmel Coffee Shop, but the rest (over the restaurant and in a separate main building) are just as comfortable, with traditional wooden furniture, ornate gold mirrors and Sedbergh Soap Company products in the bathrooms.
Unsurprisingly, the restaurant – which serves an eight-course tasting menu at lunch, upped to 18 for dinner – is often booked up months in advance. Envelopes sealed with wax contain a list of the key ingredients, should you want to know, but the charming waiters and chefs who bring the dishes to the table can elaborate on the three-day dehydration process involved in the starter of beetroot leaf with elderflower vinegar gel, and how to eat the flavoursome cod mousse and moss-like herb snow layered on a grey pebble (use crisps made from chicken skin as a scoop).
Many restaurants talk about seasonality but here it comes through in every carefully crafted, theatrical detail, from a pine branch used as a cocktail stick to the dried berries and twigs arranged around pots of liquorice custard and sea-buckthorn granita. To really go all-out, throw in the signature wine pairing, plus the optional extra cheese course (supplied by Cartmel Cheeses). But save room too for breakfast the next day at more laid-back sister restaurant Rogan & Co and before you leave, pop into the Cartmel Village Shop, known for its takeaway sticky-toffee pudding. Emma Love
Address: L'Enclume, Cavendish Street, Cartmel Nr, Grange over Sands, Cumbria, LA11 6PZ
Price: double rooms from £150
- Fjona Black
Ynyshir, Powys
There may well be a chef in the wilds of the Nagano Prefecture doing miraculous things with Welsh cawl and bara brith, but it’s unlikely. Gareth Ward, on the other hand, is conjuring all sorts of Asian umami-ness in a region where you’d normally expect a big slice of roast lamb to land on your plate. Here, eager bartender Rory ferments his own kombucha; The Cure rotates on the turntable. Pinch-pot ceramics, speckled like gull’s eggs, are showcased on rough-hewn shelves and on your table as the 18 courses arrive, each casually introduced by one of the young chefs from the open kitchen.
Ward may have never stepped foot in Japan, but he’s created an astonishing take on kaiseki, the bite-sized, multi-dish dinner: a scoop of rootsy, shroomy dashi; a puddle of buttermilk-poached apple; mackerel with sweet-sour pickled strawberry; a shard of miso caramel. Welsh wagyu appears first as a fudge-like cube of dripping, then as a perfect wedge that’s been slow-cooked for three days, dressed with shiitake ketchup and a strand of seaweed. Next door is an RSPB reserve with treecreepers and siskins almost as pretty as Ward’s dishes. Ynyshir (pronounced ‘in-is-shia’) has plans for a grill room and even a pub one day, in the hope that this might become the L’Enclume of Mid-West Wales. Rick Jordan
Address: Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms, Eglwys Fach, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 8TA
Price: double rooms from £195 including dinner Ballintaggart Farm, Perthshire
It’s clear you’re in good hands as soon as you arrive at this converted stone steading in Perthshire’s rolling hills. Owners Rachel and Chris Rowley step over the resident chickens to offer an energetic welcome. Soon the table is covered with doorstop slices of just-baked Victoria sponge, alongside seasonal cordial – apple, thyme and chard, perhaps – and tea served on artsy crockery. An open fire, deep sofas, maps and well-thumbed novels fill the drawing room. French doors look on to the terrace, where guests toast homemade marshmallows over the fire pit after dinner. Lovely local touches are gathered together in the two crisp, clean-lined bedrooms in the outbuildings: wild nettle and heather soaps, Charlotte Flower Chocolates and fresh-from-the-farm milk in mini flasks. One is a palette of soft greys, dotted with cushions from the Homer shop in nearby Aberfeldy; the other a merry sea of blue.
But, of course, the kitchen is Ballintaggart’s beating heart, where Chris – a former banker, then Edinburgh supper-club host, now Leiths-trained star-pupil chef – creates provenance-led set menus. Dishes might include roe-deer tortellini in mushroom broth, pheasant-topped risotto, monkfish with pickled vegetables, and an apple, rosemary and salted-caramel tart, served in a cosy wine-red dining room. Chris also teaches; come away from his breadmaking day armed with new sourdough skills. With Rachel’s background in PR and her cheery manner, they are an impressive combo. Chris’s brother Andrew adds drinks guru to the mix. Breakfast is worth the trip alone: fresh bread, jams, compotes, granola, a porridge of the day, and orange-yolked eggs. They even provide a goodie bag of cake when you leave. Sophie Pither
Address: Ballintaggart Farm, Grandtully, Perthshire, PH9 0PX
Price: double rooms from £145- Sarah Kay
Pentonbridge Inn, Cumbria
Two minutes’ drive from the Scottish border and surrounded by sheep, the tiny village of Penton has never had so much attention. In 2017 its unassuming 18th-century inn, once a scruffy down-at-heel pub, was bought and refurbished by the owners of nearby Grade II-listed Netherby Hall. In a game-changing move, Chris Archer has taken over the reins of the restaurant, having previously worked at The Cottage in the Wood and Winteringham Fields. The result is food like nothing else in this part of north Cumbria. The eight course set tasting menu is directed by the vegetables, fruit and herbs grown in the walled garden and Victorian glasshouses at nearby Netherby Hall, as well as ingredients from local suppliers (Winter Tarn Dairy, based at Morland, near Appleby, pork from nearby Askerton Castle).
The kitchen makes the most of the abundance of quality ingredients on its doorstep, with a menu which might start with cider cured Scottish mackerel served with pickled Netherby beetroot, and end with a delicate sablé breton of Netherby Hall raspberries and white chocolate.
Afterwards, settle into one of the velvet sofas in the pub for a nightcap in front of a log-burning stove. Upstairs, there are six rooms named after Scottish clans, and three more on the ground floor in the former barn, all equally cosy; you can see the wooded hills of Dumfriesshire less than a mile away. Wake up to perfect poached eggs, buckwheat waffle, homemade granola and fresh brioche, with local tea and coffee. A perfect end to your stay in this Borderland region. Yet more proof that this rising-star restaurant is putting North Cumbria firmly on the foodie map. Emma Love
Address: Pentonbridge Inn, Penton, Carlisle CA6 5QB
Price: double rooms from £150 The Pointer, Buckinghamshire
The windswept, hillside outpost of Brill is known for its history of brickmaking and its 17th-century windmill. And now hopefully for its food too. David and Fiona Howden already had a four-acre produce garden and a herd of grass-fed Longhorn here when a local pub came on to the market in 2012, so they pounced on it to complete their field-to-fork passion project. Their farm now delivers up to 70 ingredients, including fruit, herbs and rare-breed Middle White pork, to The Pointer and its butcher’s shop next door. The classic village pub interior has been refined: exposed stone, open fires and burners are smartened with black slate floors and armchairs upholstered in Moroccan kilims, soft grey wools and sheepskins, the restaurant’s beams heaped with pressed posies of flowers.
James Graham, previously of Cowley Manor and Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, took control of the kitchen a few summers ago. Warm sourdough with beef-dripping butter arrives first, hinting at the carnivorous meal ahead. A small selection of starters and mains includes meaty treats such as beef tartare and suckling pig. There’s little heed paid to vegetarians, save the seasonal salad with Jerusalem artichokes, hazelnuts, charred leek and pear. Star of the puddings is a sticky medjool-date affair with Weetabix ice cream. The bar heaves with villagers sinking English ales. It also serves 20 wines by the glass and several gins, so it’s a good thing the Howdens opened four rooms in a handsome house across the road for a post-supper crash-out. Fiona has nailed the boutique aesthetic with seagrass floors, woven lampshades, and rolltop baths stocked with Bramley soaps. But if you want a reminder that you’re staying in a pub, breakfast the next morning is absurdly hearty, with homemade sausages, black pudding and more of that beef dripping, this time for fried bread, washed down with a Bloody Mary. Lydia Bell
Address: The Pointer, 27 Church St, Brill, Bucks, HP18 9RT
Price: double rooms from £130
- Lisa Devlin
The Ginger Pig, East Sussex
Every town needs its shining-light restaurant and The Ginger Pig is just that in Hove. Ben and Pamela McKellar, owners of the Gingerman group, have always kept things understated here, trusting that the selling point was a full house of very satisfied diners. But now the look is a little sleeker with a ground-floor bar in shiny brass and white marble and 11 smartly informal rooms above. It’s a nod to the stamp of confidence found across the menu, which cleverly juggles crowd-pleasers (burger, lemon sole, steak) with more cheffy head-turners (pumpkin agrodolce, cod cheeks with jalapeño mayo, coriander and corn shells). White-chocolate mousse with apples, chestnut parfait and oat clusters goes down a storm for pudding, as does the unfussy presentation of British cheeses with a very good membrillo.
On the extensive and well-balanced wine list there’s a delicious Alain Jaume, Southern Rhone, and a deeply pleasing Catena Vista Flores Malbec. The apple-and-elderflower Collins is a great choice from an impressive non-alcoholic cocktail list, the spirited counterpart of which is also excellent, as is the selection of dry sherries and Madeiras. For more than a decade the food at The Ginger Pig has been a compelling reason to scoot across from Brighton. Now there’s an excuse to stay over, with pre-mixed cocktails in the minibars and Cowshed bottles by the standalone bath tubs. There are cleverly considered touches too; ice delivered to the rooms each evening and, in summer, raffia baskets with beach towels and mats for trips over the road to dip your toes in the English Channel. Tom Connolly
Address: The Ginger Pig, 3 Hove Street, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2TR
Price: double rooms from £100