Market Harborough, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This “great local restaurant” from Chris & Abby Ascough has built a solid reputation over 19 years for its “beautifully cooked and presented food” at “exceptionally good value” – including a £20 set lunch and a six-course tasting menu for £48 per person with matching wines for £20 per person.

Stephen and Tracy Fitzpatrick, who also run The Joiners Arms at Bruntingthorpe, are the winning duo behind this sixteenth-century village inn with four rooms, three miles south of Market Harborough; the wide-ranging menu tips its hat to fish ‘n’ chips on Friday, and takes in thrice-weekly ‘Auberge Suppers’, and there are “lovely gardens to go with the excellent food”. Tip Tip – it’s “worth staying for the superb veggie breakfast”.

This “beautiful old country pub” – thatched and beamed, with a “lovely cosy atmosphere, open fire and low lighting” – serves “top-quality food” from chef Emilie Bull, backed up with an “impressive wine list” overseen by proprietor Tim Hubbard, here for 22 years with his wife Kate. “Kate and Tim know what they’re doing and they do it very well indeed” – “they’re always so friendly and happy to see you again”.

This “fascinating old pub in a quiet village in rural Leicestershire” is now in its fifth year under “top-notch chef Dom Clarke (ex-Moor Hall) doing his own thing in a small kitchen, which produces unusual combinations of high-quality ingredients, mostly locally grown and supplied”. The “menu is very limited” (3 starters and 3 mains), but that’s “easy to overlook when the dishes are expertly constructed and presented, and rarely disappoint”. “Add to this friendly service and a great atmosphere”.

With its oak beams and flagstone floors, this family-run rural gastropub between Leicester and Lutterworth continues to win a solid thumbs up from Midlands-based reporters in our annual diners’ poll. The fairly traditional, bistro-style cooking (e.g. chicken liver parfait, steak or seabass, panna cotta) is in a more ambitious mould than typical pub grub.