Britain’s best restaurants with rooms

Some food is worth staying the night for – and these hotels and inns have upped their gourmet game, says Tabitha Joyce

Over the past decade, the way we travel has changed dramatically – and one of the biggest shifts has been the prioritisation of food. Our grandparents would have baulked at the idea of travelling the length of the country for the sake of a restaurant – but now, trips around the world are being planned around a single dish.

With this movement comes the growth of a new breed of restaurant in Britain: the kitchens picking, then pickling, their beetroots; the farms rearing, smoking and curing their own pork; the places to stay that started off as just a bedroom or two – perhaps upstairs, or across the road – for their diners to stumble into after an epic feast.

That feast is so good, it is worth staying the night for; and even then, it is as much about the breakfast as the bedroom interiors or the standalone bath tub. What travellers are looking for is a breakfast menu with a chef ’s spin – no more continental buffets with smoked salmon past its best.

A lot of the time, it is about being given no breakfast choice at all – such as sweet rice pudding and a croissant-meets-muffin at Number One Bruton. Or a short seasonal list not dissimilar to those you might see at dinner. At Updown Farmhouse in Kent, there isn’t a mini jar of honey or a basket of croissants in sight – just dishes of homemade rhubarb and ginger jam for those who order it with a hunk of fresh-from-the-oven sourdough. Monachyle Mhor serves Scottish berries with crème fraîche, and at The Black Swan in Oldstead, Tommy Banks’s team serves up a truffle omelette oozing Baron Bigod cheese with a chicory bun.

Interiors, too, have had an upgrade. Tired old rooms above pubs have been given thoughtthrough design lifts with lovely local nods: fabrics by a talented village resident, or seasonal flowers delivered from a nearby estate displayed in artisanal ceramics. Or perhaps even a chic bell tent or a quirky cabin in the garden will be on offer.

Here are the addresses that have made hotels around the country up their gourmet game.

Updown Farmhouse Kent

This 17th-century farmhouse outside the seaside town of Deal initially opened its restaurant in a slightly draughty outbuilding without permanent walls in 2022. And yet, it quickly became the hottest spot in the South East.

Now, despite functioning walls, there are still heat lamps – which lend a romantic fiery glow to Mediterranean-inspired plates of burrata with fried artichoke, and rump steak. The four bedrooms in the main house feel like you are staying in the home of a friend with fantastic taste – a clementine-coloured sitting room is particularly striking as the morning light pours in. The menu is short, seasonal and pitch-perfect and the bedrooms are a wonderful antidote to the cut-and-paste hotel rooms popping up elsewhere. Doubles from £210, including breakfast (07842244192; updownfarmhouse.com) Boath House Scotland

The vision of Jonny Gent, the artist behind the hot-ticket London restaurant-gallery Sessions Arts Club, Boath House is his Highlands headquarters. And it has not one, but two of the best restaurants for miles around. Boath House Garden Café, in the Victorian walled garden, turns out simple earthy plates of wood-fired flatbreads piled with leaves grown on site, and smoked trout from Nairn harbour. Inside the Palladian mansion there is a brand-new innovative and more refined menu of local ingredients such as carrot with Douglas fir and leeks with Dunlop cheese. Interiors are just-plastered, with creatives in residence slowly filling the walls, as well as the restaurant soundtrack. It’s a brilliant fusion of food, art and the Scottish Highlands. Doubles from £250, including breakfast (01667 454896; boath-house.com) Number One Bruton Somerset

Part of the much-heralded renaissance of the Somerset town, this little hotel has been home to chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Michelin- and Green starred Osip restaurant since it opened in 2019. Now is the time to book, because he is only serving his menuless tasting experience here until the end of May when the restaurant moves to a new home nearby. But there is no doubt that the husband-and-wife team behind Number One, Aled Rees and Claudia Waddams, will be cooking up something exciting in the kitchen – their taste is always bang-on.

Five new bedrooms are on the cards too, as the duo expands its offering into the ancient pub next door. This is an affordable townhouse hotel with an eye for design and all things foodie. Doubles from £160, including breakfast (01749 813030; numberonebruton.com) Monachyle Mhor Scotland

This pale-pink lochside farmhouse is run by Tom Lewis who grew up here. The self-taught chef officially took over his parents B&B in 1999 when they retired and has slowly built a serious reputation for the restaurant since. The majority of ingredients are sourced from the family farm: local lamb might be served with pomme dauphine, turnip, raisin and chimichurri; a Gressingham duck breast with beetroot, bramble and hazelnuts. The bedrooms in the farmhouse have some cool design touches, and there are also quirky cabins dotted through the grounds – an old waiting room from a ferry terminal, for example. A strikingly contemporary restaurant with rooms that is mixing up the Scottish hotel scene.

Doubles from £290, including breakfast (01877 384622; monachylemhor.net) The Suffolk Suffolk

Managing director of London’s L’Escargot, George Pell, relocated to Aldeburgh during the pandemic when he set up a seaside pop-up, L’Escargot SurMer. But then Pell never left and The Suffolk was born. Six little bedrooms are unassuming in shades of white and blue that manage to avoid any clichéd nautical tropes. But it is the seafood in the restaurant that is stand-out: oysters from Pinney’s in nearby Orford, dressed crab with pickled cucumber and avocado, and barbecued lobster doused in garlic butter. The cocktails are excellent too – the first drinks list of its kind on Aldeburgh high street. Plus Pell, who knows everyone, is full of additional local recommendations for exploring. Doubles from £180, including breakfast (07831 601411; the-suffolk.co.uk) The Black Swan Yorkshire

The Banks family pub looks pretty unassuming, but it is not somewhere you can tip up without a booking. Upstairs, a minimalist dining room is run by the Banks’ son, Tommy, who, aged 24, was the youngest British chef to receive a Michelin star. More than 10 years later the restaurant still leads the way with its North Sea lobster ravioli and beetroot slow-cooked in beef fat. These days, it has a Michelin Green star for its use of the kitchen garden too. Bedrooms are scattered in the village’s rose-covered cottages.

From £600 for dinner, breakfast and a double room (reception@ blackswanoldstead.co.uk; blackswanoldstead.co.uk) Hope Cove House Devon

Just 10 minutes from busy Salcombe, Inner Hope is relatively under-the-radar – its thatched cottages centring around a swoop of golden sand. This 10-bedroom guest house is close enough to the beach to pad down the road in bare feet. Crucially, husbandand-wife team Oli and Alexandra Barker have form when it comes to food – they opened Six Portland Road together in 2016. Now based full-time in Devon, they have created a place where the living room shelves are stacked with recipe books from the world’s best chefs and the restaurant food is exceptional. Crispy bream is served with chips and tartare, Salcombe scallops with ‘nduja and lemon sole with beurre noisette. It is everything you could possibly want from a bright and breezy seaside stay. Doubles from £150, including breakfast (01548 561371; hopecovehouse.co) Hand and Flowers Buckinghamshire

Tom Kerridge’s Marlow pub made a serious name for itself as soon as it opened in 2005 and it is still the only one in the UK to have two Michelin stars. Brilliantly, the restaurant focuses on classic pub grub which means one of the smartest plates of fish and chips ever served (with minted pea purée and caviar tartare sauce) and, in the morning, a full English that acts as a masterclass in well-sourced ingredients. The bedrooms, which came much later, are dotted across the town and are probably most noteworthy for the home-baked whoopie-pie biscuits and thermos of hot malted milk left to welcome guests. It’s all wonderfully unstuffy given the calibre of the cooking.

Doubles from £325, including breakfast (01628 482277; thehandandflowers. co.uk) Tillingham East Sussex

While most know Tillingham first as a winery, the restaurant stands on its own. Estate chef Brendan Eaves used to work at zero-waste Silo in Hackney, east London, and so his ethos matches that of the biodynamic low-intervention vineyard. The flavours centre exclusively around the meat reared on Tillingham pastures and fish caught daily on Rye Harbour.

The five-course tasting menu might include homemade focaccia with labneh, plates of fine-sliced coppa circled around a pile of pickles and Dungeness

crab with nasturtium and turnips.

Outside, there is a low-key woodfired oven dishing up goat’s cheese, pea, mint and garlic pizzas every lunchtime. And in a former hop barn are 11 elegant bedrooms to stumble into after you have tasted all of the house wines. Doubles from £175, including breakfast (01797 208226; tillingham.com) The Bull Cotswolds

The atmosphere on a Friday night at this 16th-century coaching inn is unlike almost any pub in the country. Dimly lit, largely by candles, it is deeply cool and moody. The bedrooms are hotel-standard – a highlight of which, room six, has a log burner in the bathroom and a romantic canopy bed.

But the real scene is all downstairs, choreographed by the same team as Notting Hill’s fan favourite The Pelican. Supper might start with a sensational slab of soda bread, followed by deepfried slices of partridge served with a kohlrabi slaw – even the children’s options are spot on (a coiled up sausage

with roasted skin-on spuds) while still feeling as grown up as the rest of the joint.

Doubles from £175, room only (01608 656957; thebullcharlbury.com) Boys Hall Kent

There is a clear effort to incorporate local ingredients and sustainability into everything at this 17th-century Kentish Wealden hall outside of Ashford. On the breakfast menu is sourdough from Docker Bakery in West Hythe, local farm sausages and thick-cut bacon as well as Boys Hall’s own honey. At supper, venison and beef from nearby Chart Farm are cooked on an open flame and crispy Ratte potatoes in beef dripping. The hall’s history is one of sheltering fleeing kings and hiding stolen treasures and so all of the bedrooms are filled with character thanks to medieval beams and original stone mullioned windows. It’s a destination stay that is completely unique to the area. Doubles from £180, including breakfast (01233 427727; boys-hall.com) Pythouse Kitchen Garden Wiltshire

This magical 18th-century walled garden is best known for its enticing menu of fermented sourdough flatbreads topped with seasonal flavours straight from the vegetable beds. Also on the menu are charcoal grilled chalkstream trout and beef served with black garlic ketchup cooked over the fire-pit.

What only a few visitors seem to know, however, is that you can also book to stay overnight in a shepherd’s hut here. The wood burner inside keeps things cosy, and the fairy lights and lanterns feel particularly fitting after one of the restaurant’s midsummer feast nights. Be warned, however, that the shower is outdoors, albeit entirely private and with piping hot water. There are also six bell tents kitted out with proper beds and fresh linen for group gatherings.

A stay in the shepherd’s hut costs £130 per night, including breakfast (01747 870444; pythousekitchengarden.co.uk) The Rectory Wiltshire

The Georgian manor hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds has long been a popular spot for a foodie break. But new this year in the kitchen is Jake Simpson, former head chef at Soho’s Bocca di Lupo (he was also trained by Quo Vadis’ Jeremy Lee), and so there’s more reason to book than ever. With Simpson come flavours including egg-yolk raviolo with bottarga butter and Cornish cod ink romesco with salt cod croquettes.

Downstairs there are roaring fires and ornate cornicing, while upstairs in the understated bedrooms there are stand-alone bathtubs and velvet headboards. A particularly lovely spot to book in the summer when you can make the most of the heated swimming pool in the garden. Doubles from £170, including breakfast (01666 577194; therectoryhotel.com) L’Enclume Lake District

This restaurant with rooms from Simon Rogan (who arguably led the

The menu might feature fine-sliced coppa circled around a pile of pickles and Dungeness crab with nasturtium

way in Britain for menus driven by foraging and local sourcing) has two renowned restaurants in this part of Cumbria, set just five minutes apart. One of them has one Michelin star, while the other has three.

The three Michelin-starred L’Enclume (tasting menu from £250) offers 15 courses, each made with exceptional skill, balance and creativity. L’Enclume’s sister restaurant is the one-Michelin-starred Rogan & Co (where three courses plus canapés and pre-dessert cost from £79). It offers the same skill – on display in a semiopen kitchen – but with a more straightforward presentation. The smart but unshowy rooms are scattered around the restaurants, all within the pretty village of Cartmel. Doubles from £270, including breakfast (01539 536362; lenclume.co.uk) Forest Side Lake District

The vast kitchen garden is a clue that this solid Victorian villa is not what it seems. A Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms, its interiors are coolly elegant and flooded with light while head chef Paul Leonard’s food is creative, with a real sense of terroir.

The seven-strong kitchen brigade build complex, though unflashy, and precisely flavour-balanced dishes that are more filling than their small size suggests. Perhaps beef tartare with caviar and smoked bone marrow, a punchy salad of pickled vegetables and walnuts, tiny gnocchi with caramelised shallots and wild garlic.

All 20 rooms share the same softly elegant style: unvarnished fruitwood Gustavian furniture, chocolate carpets, dove-grey walls and shimmery fabrics in silver and delicate aqua.

Doubles from £320, including breakfast (01539 435250; theforestside.com) Myse North Yorkshire

Myse is a quietly confident property on the edge of the Howardian Hills with just three soothing bedrooms and really shows off how to approach fine-dining today. Expect a deft mix of playful and elegant dishes that pay homage to traditional Yorkshire cooking and a pleasingly relaxed dining experience. No wonder it was awarded a Michelin star just seven months after opening. The team has put together one of the most exciting tasting menus in the land – ironically by looking to the past and leaning into traditional English cookery. Techniques such as pickling and fermenting make appearances throughout and the chefs are kept busy, foraging the surrounding moors for ingredients. The bread course deserves a mention all of its own: tangy seeded sourdough accompanied by both butter and a pot of chicken drippings.

Doubles from £470, including the tasting menu and breakfast (restaurantmyse.co.uk) The Taybank Scotland

This 19th-century inn is set on the banks of the River Tay in the village of Dunkeld. The property has undergone a series of reincarnations, taking it from a bank to a Victorian temperance hotel to a famous folk music bar. Its latest guise is a hip pub with rooms and one of Scotland’s biggest beer gardens.

The food is best described as gastropub grub taken up a notch, with a focus on local provenance. They grow much of the produce themselves in a nearby walled garden; think rabbit rillette, radish and charred focaccia or Shetland mussels with garlic, chilli and tomato to start, followed by venison from a local estate with pearl barley and pickled celeriac. In that enormous beer garden, you can also tuck into gourmet wood-fired pizzas.

Doubles from £220, including breakfast (01350 677123; thetaybank.co.uk) Holm Somerset

Impeccably stylish bedrooms and honest, creative food are the reasons to visit Holm, set in an attractive Ham stone village. The restaurant, led by a trendy chef from London, has earned accolades for both its food and its relationship with local growers.

Seven bedrooms, set in an exciting modernisation of this former merchants’ house, take the enterprise to a smart new level. Choose between a reasonably priced chef ’s menu at £59 or go à la carte. The torched mackerel, with tart turnip slices in a buttermilk and lovage dressing is a hit, while the venison comes with spicy red cabbage ketchup and black pudding crumb.

Breakfast is pleasingly proportioned, with options for chalk stream trout, smoked in-house over applewood, or house-cured treacle pork belly, with an egg, sourdough and a hash brown. Doubles from £140, including breakfast (01460 712470; holmsomerset.co.uk) Ynyshir Wales

With head chef Gareth Ward and his architect-trained partner Amelia Eiríksson at the helm, Ynyshir launched as a restaurant with rooms in summer 2016 – and has become one of the country’s best, certainly judging by its long list of awards. Gareth is ballsy and fearlessly experimental; he walks the culinary high wire in his own inimitable way and he isn’t afraid to turn away vegetarians and extol the virtues of meat and fat. His surprise, 19-course, four-hour-long tasting menu is an ode to Japanese-meets-Welsh flavours. Top billing rooms-wise goes to the secluded garden rooms, with high ceilings, exposed beams, impressive slate fireplaces and floor-to-ceiling windows. From £525pp for a table including dinner, breakfast and a room, two sharing (01654 781209; ynyshir.co.uk) Glebe House Devon

Wake up to the sound of cows, birds and bees at this chic, family-run and food-focused guesthouse in the East Devon AONB. Owner Hugo, a chef, has done time at hot London restaurants including The Marskman and Sorella. On Sundays to Wednesdays, a “simple”menu of homely dishes is served – perhaps a vegetarian lasagne and rocket salad from the garden. On Thursdays to Saturdays, the cooking goes up a notch. Hugo has taken inspiration from an Italian agriturismo, and so you can expect a four-course set menu that might include meat, fish and poultry from the doorstep, and ingredients from his very own polytunnel and kitchen garden. There are five bedrooms, all different shapes and sizes, but each one shares the sensibility of the public spaces: colourful and special with individual touches. Doubles from £225, including breakfast (01404 871276; glebehousedevon.co.uk)

i Stay at Number One Bruton in Somerset and dine at its Michelin-starred Osip restaurant

i Cotswolds cuisine: at the Bull in Charlbury, soda bread, deep-fried partridge and kohlrabi salad might be on the menu

i Destination stay: Boys Hall in Kent, where medieval beams and mullioned windows lend character to the bedrooms

j Wine o’clock: at Tillingham in East Sussex, ‘the food ethos matches that of the biodynamic vineyard’ that surrounds it

jg ‘Balance and creativity:’ a dish at Simon Rogan’s three-Michelinstarred L’Enclume

ii A pub with a tub: The Taybank in Dunkeld, Scotland

g Forest Side in the Lake District is a ‘solid Victorian villa’ with a vast kitchen garden – and a Michelin star

i ‘Hand-dived Orkney scallops baked in its shell with sea urchin butter’ – on the menu at Myse, North Yorkshire

i ‘Cool design touches’: Monachyle Mhor, a lochside farmhouse in Scotland

iWorld of interiors: Glebe House, Devon Each of the five bedrooms shares the sensibility of the public spaces: colourful and special with individual touches

h ‘Complex, though unflashy’: a dish at Forest Side, Cumbria

g Popular spot: The Rectory, Wiltshire, ‘a Georgian manor hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds'

h ‘Seasonal flavours’; a spread at Pythouse Kitchen Garden, in Wiltshire