Shepperton, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: “The best by far in the locality” – with “upmarket pub food that puts many expensive restaurants to shame” – this “buzzing” gastroboozer is “always excellent, whether you want a quick lunch or are celebrating a special occasion”. Top Tip – “walk there along the towpath on a sunny summer evening”.

2021 Review: A refurbishment/relaunch a few years ago added to the charms of this good all-round boozer, handy pre- or post catching the nags at Sandown Park, whose food was consistently well-rated last year.

The intimate, seven-table dining room at this grand manor-house hotel features a tapestried wall and spectacular Tudor fireplace, making it an ideal showcase for ambitious and refined classical meals from chef Alex Payne, who grew up a mile away in Egham and trained under Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay. The hotel also serves smart afternoon teas in the Anne Boleyn drawing room and relaxed meals in the Estate Grill, with an impressive vaulted ceiling.

Food TV staple José Pizarro’s first outfit outside the capital – and first gastroboozer (with rooms) – is set in “a not-completely-obvious location” in the Surrey ‘burbs. Reviews were slightly muted this year: while most praised the “great modern Spanish food” (including “fabulous tapas”), others noted a lack of atmosphere (“wouldn’t be hard to make it feel a bit more intimate”).

2021 Review: FKA ‘The Manor at Foxhills’: this “beautiful” dining room of a top golf course – set in an impressive Victorian manor house – “has been refurbished, with no carpets or window furnishings so it’s noisier than it used to be”. Too little feedback as yet from which to rate this new, more modern guise, but prices are not punishing and there is a menu for ‘Young Adults’. A traditional afternoon tea in the adjoining plush lounge is still an option.

From a growing popular chain of ‘no membership’ clubs, this comfortable venue has a bar, lounge, orangery and terrace, along with “fun” all-weather igloos on the roof, in which to graze on a pretty standard all-day menu of Italian-inspired dishes, including pizza and pasta. Not a culinary fave rave, but handy for many occasions.

The Rarebreed Dining Group’s boozer is far from your regular beast: the in-house butchery and smokery turns out “excellent” meaty cuts including chateaubriand, t-bone or sous-vide sirloin; in August they also run an outdoor cinema if you’d like some celluloid after your steak.