Buckingham Restaurant Guide

“Michael North delivers sublime food and Imogen North creates the perfect front-of-house ambience” according to the many fans of this well-known foodie destination, which occupies a thatched rural pub. “Mike and Imogen have maintained such high standards since the first day they opened” in 2006. You can go for the short ‘Pub Classics’ menu – which delivers superior steak or fish ’n’ chips in the bar – but our reporters are more generally interested in the seven-course tasting menu (plus bread) for £115 per person. In either case, it’s a “lovely setting” and you get “high quality every time”. (A plea from one regular though: “I hope they go back to a full à la carte menu some time soon”).

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”.

“Go mad for further adventures in veg” at Yotam Ottolenghi’s famous deli-cafés, whose Middle Eastern inspired menus are best known for their “creative” salads and meat-free dishes (bread and pastries are also “fabulous”) but there are also some meat and fish options. They are far from cheap, but “the spicing is interesting”, “the flavours are immense” and “the small-plates format allows you to try a number of options”. “A great spot for brunch” or “to drop in for cake and tea”. The Islington branch is most commented-on, and in December 2023 its newest sibling (also in north London) opened on Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, while a branch in Richmond, in the leafy southwest, is scheduled for late 2024.