Dorset, French Restaurant Guide

This “lovely cottage” in the heart of Thomas Hardy country serves “very good British food with interesting twists” from owner Jamie Jones, a former exec chef with Four Seasons hotels who settled here with his wife Ariane in 2007. The novelist would have known the 300-year-old thatched shepherd’s cottage well – he was born a mile away and grew up in the village. The Joneses also run the Yalbury Café in nearby Dorchester.