Ampthill Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: “All food pubs should be like this!” – according to fans of this “perfect pit stop” on the outskirts of town. “You can’t fault the intent or enthusiasm of the service and the food, if unadventurous, is very decent”.

2023 Review: This village pub-with-rooms just off the A1 offers “attractively presented food” on a menu which is “a cut above standard gastropub fare” – best enjoyed in the “new outside dining area, which in summer evokes a lovely Mediterranean feel”.

“Enjoyable” farmhouse in a countryside setting just north of London that’s “more restaurant than pub, and one of the best places in the area for good cooking” – “there’s lobster and oysters, you could ask for nothing more!” – from “an excellent and varied menu, alongside personable-but-efficient service and a good choice of reasonably priced wines”. It’s a “lively, vibrant” spot, and “in summer, tables out in the garden are lovely, particularly as the conservatory dining room can be very noisy”.

“Far and away an outstanding pub/restaurant in this part of the world” – this atmospheric and much commented-on 15th-century inn is “pitch-perfect in every way” after 20 years under Martyn & Jayne Lee’s direction, with “assured cooking for every course” – “we hadn’t been for a while and I would say the cooking has actually gone up a level”. Top Menu Tip – “the soufflés are truly amazing”.

“Fascinating dishes served with enthusiasm” make a meal at this small tasting menu-only restaurant on the edge of town “a great experience”. Steven Barringer is a “passionate chef” heading a young team “who clearly care” and he takes the time to chat to his guests, while his cooking is both “interesting and subtle”, in particular the “superb fish dishes” and “amazing desserts”.

Open in July 2025, a newly opened gastropub set in a 450-year-old coaching inn (that was previously operating as a restaurant). Led by Chef Alex Corley and Operations Manager Adam Msetfi, the pub offers modern British cuisine in a historic setting. Samples dishes include Cornish crab tartlet, elderflower and Granny Smith apple; Brioche doughnuts with pulled beef; Herefordshire rump of beef, Blythburgh Farm pork belly, and North Devon roast chicken.

Two minutes from the station, a scion from the dynasty behind the famous Brilliant Indian restaurant in Southall has spread her wings to open a 150-cover venue in the shiny new Unity Place development in late 2023; dusting off some of her family’s oldest recipes (and there’s an in-house microbrewery too). No survey feedback as yet, but in her June 2024 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent declared it one of the best things to have happened to Milton Keynes in ages – “absolutely charming” once you leave the exterior streetscape behind, with “light, thoughtful cooking that determinedly sets out to incapacitate you, with lovely, kind service”.