What the experts recommend

The Parsons Table 2 & 8 Castle Mews, Tarrant Street, Arundel, West Sussex (01903-883477) This friendly restaurant in ancient Arundel has the benefit of being set in a little tucked-away courtyard. When we visit, it is “aglow with greenery”, and the effect is heavenly, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “Sunbeams bathing on the leaves. Music cooing softly in the background. So quiet and secluded and restful.” The food, too, lifts the spirits and calms the soul. Pork pies can so often disappoint, but the large slice of Orchard Farm pork pie I kick off with here is a gem: “meat, meat, meat, and complemented nicely by a sweetonion chutney”. To follow, a “pressing” of rabbit is “cool, slim and lissom”, and comes with a fennel remoulade, and my pudding is a “gorgeously jammy” West Sussex strawberry sablé, with basil and mint for “added zing”. A charming restaurant; a lovely lunch. 3 courses for two: about £70, plus drinks.

Pasture 2 Portwall Lane, Bristol (07741-193445) Pasture is that rarest of beasts, says Grace Dent in The Guardian – a first-rate steakhouse that will make non-carnivores swoon. This is all the more surprising when you consider that Pasture is not just any old steakhouse. It’s an “unabashed, balls-out”, honking great slabs of raw, 35-day-aged tomahawk or chateaubriand kind of steakhouse, with a horned Highland cow’s head on the wall. My dining companion entered into “at-table negotiations” for 1.2kg of local-breed, wild cherry wood-smoked tomahawk – and declared it some of the finest steak he’d ever tasted. Meanwhile, I devoured a plate of ash-baked beetroot with goat’s curd, elderberry vinegar and pecans that was a “sharp, crunchy pleasure”. Whatever he’s cooking, chef Sam Elliott combines “brilliant” local produce in a way that recklessly pushes the culinary boundaries. Duck liver mousse with chai pickles? Cured trout with vermouth and horseradish? This could be car-crash cookery, but Elliott is someone who “can make a raw kale Caesar salad feel naughty”. About £35 a head, plus drinks and service. The Duke of Richmond 316 Queensbridge Road, London E8 (020-7923 3990) Truly great dishes are “mindfulness incarnate”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. They instantly stop you dwelling gloomily on what you haven’t done today or what you should be doing tomorrow, and make you focus intensely on whatever it is you are eating. The crab chip butty at chef Tom Oldroyd’s recently restored Duke of Richmond in Hackney – a “neighbourhood pub and dining room” according to its own billing – is one of those dishes. It’s a palm-sized, goldenglazed bun, filled with mayonnaisebound white crabmeat, the crunch of lightly pickled samphire and a “fistful of still hot, still crisp chips”. It’s not the only magnificent dish here, of course: this place is “just a neighbourhood pub in the way Buckingham Palace is just a house and Piers Morgan is just a little bit irritating”. But it is typical of the kitchen’s “luscious, greedy, thighrubbing” instincts. Trust me: you want to eat here. Meal for two: from £70, including drinks.