What the experts recommend

The Mash Inn Horseshoe Road, Radnage, Buckinghamshire (01494-482440) Slightly depressingly, this “restaurant-in-aformer-country-pub” has been renamed The Mash Inn because it’s now owned by a bloke called Nick Mash, says Keith Miller in The Daily Telegraph. Other than that, I liked it very much. The front part of what used to be The Three Horseshoes has been retained as a “curatorially correct country-pub taproom”, with a small bar, wonky brickwork and “all the trimmings”. Behind it, there’s a large stone-floored dining area and an open kitchen, dominated by a massive wood-fired grill, which turns out food that’s “ambitious, imaginatively conceived and confidently realised”. We went for the “daily menu” at £55 (there’s also a £150 tasting menu, with wine) and the balance of flavours was “superb”. We especially liked a smooth romanesco soup “spiked with little astringent cubes of russet apple and chewy nuggets of black garlic”. And thanks to that grill, both meat dishes (including a fallow deer leg) and fish (a hunk of cod) were fab.

£55 for six courses. The inn is “not suitable for under-16s”.

The Royal Oak 2 Upper Farm Barn, Whatcote, Warwickshire (01295-688100) Much as I might wish for a touch less “Cotswoldian perfection”, this ancient boozer – recently acquired by Richard and Solanche Craven – is at least in safe hands, says Marina O’loughlin in The Sunday Times. I’ve been wowed in the past by Richard’s cooking, both at The Fuzzy Duck near Stratford-upon-avon and The Chef’s Dozen in Chipping Campden. Frankly, I’d follow his signature dish of whipped pork fat anywhere, and here it’s executed brilliantly. Another “bravura” dish is tender, bouncy razor clams with duck heart, sharp with blood orange and fennel seeds. And there’s a sublime starter of pig’s head “lasagne” (made with sheets of dough rather than pasta), which is “satisfying, giddily hedonistic”, and stops “just the right side of death by richness”. A piece of brill has been ruined by being cooked in a water bath, but duck breast is “immaculate”, and a dessert of rice pudding soufflé with butterscotch ice cream has me “hooked like a guppy”. Meal for two £65, plus drinks.

Sorella 148 Clapham Manor Street, London SW4 (020-7720 4662)

As the restaurant world “tightens its belt, with new closures daily, I wonder if Michelin-flirting whimsy” will be a casualty, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. This place used to be The Manor, where owner Robin Gill “wooed and wowed” gastronomes with “puzzling plates of high drama”. But The Manor has become Sorella, which is essentially a glorious Amalfi coast pasta joint sitting on a side street in Clapham. To judge from the packed dining room the lunchtime I visited, it was a clever move. “Folk will always want pasta.” Or, in my case, they’ll want a flute of rhubarb bellini followed by a “zinging” bowl of fresh linguine with crab and fennel, and maybe some breaded, deep-fried sweet Nocellara olives and some “feisty” truffle arancini. Cep gnocchi were also outstanding – “thick, heavenly lumps of wanton carb action”. For secondi, we went for venison meatballs on polenta topped with a fried egg; the only niggle was “that there was too much venison. There, readers, is the very definition of a good lunch”. Fantastic dolci, too. £40 a head for three courses.