Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Horncastle
Hardens guides have spent 34 years compiling reviews of the best Horncastle restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 62 restaurants in Horncastle and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Horncastle restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Horncastle Restaurants
1. The Bottle & Glass Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Binfield Heath
Bones Lane - RG9
A short drive from Henley-on-Thames, this thatched pub, has a “modern dining room extension to a traditional wood-beamed interior”. Classic pub dishes (for example steaks or honey-glazed ham, egg and chips) are served alongside more ambitious fare, including venison from the surrounding Phillimore Estate.
2. The Vanilla Pod
French restaurant in Marlow
31 West St - SL7
“Year after year the food is consistently excellent and the value incredibly high” at Michael & Steph Macdonald’s well-established fixture, which they founded over 18 years ago in a house once occupied by poet TS Eliot. “Whether it’s the excellent value set lunch or the full tasting menu” you opt for, all reports are full of praise (“I hadn’t been to the Vanilla Pod since before the Pandemic, so was delighted to discover that it was still in business and as good as ever”; “I have yet to have a course I didn’t enjoy”). “Others in the locale get more publicity, but in reality offer less for more”.
3. Home Sweet Home Inn
restaurant in Wallingford
Roke - OX10
2024 Review: “Excellent pub food in Chilterns countryside” is to be had at this cosy seventeenth-century country pub in the hamlet of Roke, near Wallingford. The straightforward menu specialises in grills, and if you still have room for cheese afterwards there’s a notably good selection.
4. Caprice at Crowne Plaza Reading
British, Modern restaurant in Reading
Wharfedale Rd, Winnersh Triangle - RG41
The new luxury 4 Silver Star Crowne Plaza Reading M4, Jct 10, provides a stylish, contemporary look and feel to suit the business traveller, leisure, and spa guest. The hotel, set in landscaped podium gardens, delivers exceptional dining experiences, providing a serene setting...
5. Caldesi in Campagna
Italian restaurant in Bray
Old Mill Ln - SL6
“Lovely as ever and long may it continue” – Giancarlo & Katie Caldesi’s “welcoming” country venue (their flagship is in Marylebone) provides “wonderful Italian cooking”, including “silky-smooth homemade pasta” and “top-quality, tender calf’s liver in white wine”.
6. Sindhu
Indian restaurant in Marlow
The Compleat Angler - SL7
“A lovely view of the weir at Marlow and over the Thames” through old-fashioned leaded glass windows is a highlight at this “friendly and professional” outpost of star chef Atul Kochhar, which – true to the contrasts of 21st-century Britain – aims to pay homage to his love of Indian cuisine in the environs of a “pretty” dining room by the river whose situation is archetypal of the traditional English Home Counties. On most accounts, his team provides “exceptional” cuisine that’s “sometimes full-on Indian” but mostly “a subtle, not-too-fiery fusion”. Ratings, though, are dragged down this year by a minority who find its performance “very average”. Top Menu Tips – “sublime Dal Makhani”; “the best ever soft shell crab and amazing monkfish”.
7. The Mutton at Hazeley Heath
restaurant in Hook
. - RG27
Leafily located between Reading and Basingstoke on the Hampshire Downs, this “good country gastropub” is an accessible spot for refugees from ‘The Smoke’. Though rooted in traditional pub favourites (Shepherd’s Pie, Fish ’n’ Chips, Steak) the “food is a bit more elegant than the usual and they try very hard. Prices therefore are higher than average but it’s still overall good value”.
8. Orwells
British, Traditional restaurant in Binfield Heath
Shiplake Row - RG9
“As always, outstanding food” is again reported at Ryan & Lian Simpson-Trotman’s converted 18th-century pub in the lush countryside surrounding Henley-on-Thames – “a brilliant place that’s always a delight to visit”. There’s an à la carte menu with two courses for £65 per person or you can opt for a seven-course tasting menu for £130 per person.
9. The French Horn
French restaurant in Sonning-on-Thames
‘We are closed for a holiday period – looking forward to seeing you soon’ is – as of October 2025 – the message on the website (and answer-machine) of this famous Thames Valley institution, in a gorgeous Thames-side position at Sonning Eye and famous for its spit-roasted duck. Owned by the Emmanuel family since 1972, it went on the market in September 2023 but we can find no record of any sale, and it seems to have been closed for most of 2025. Will it reopen?
10. Glaze at Crowne Plaza Marlow
British, Modern restaurant in Marlow
Fieldhouse Lane - SL7
Experience excellent food and fine wine in the 4 silver star Crowne Plaza Marlow’s newly refurbished Glaze Restaurant in Marlow, AA Rosette awarded for its culinary excellence. Having recently undergone a huge refurbishment project, the Glaze Restaurant is no...
11. The Vineyard at Stockcross
British, Modern restaurant in Stockcross
Despite its sale by Sir Peter Michael and his family in late 2024 to Apex Hotel, this Californian-influenced, Relais & Châteaux property seems to sail on much as it did previously and ratings in our annual diners’ poll have barely budged. There is a cheaper posh-brasserie dining room, but the main event from a culinary point of view is the 28-cover ‘Tasting Room’ added in 2023, with Tom Scade providing a nine course menu for £115 per person, whose breezy fusion-esque style would not look out of place near some Pacific highway. The exceptional wine that was central to Sir Peter’s interest remains a focus, with a cellar capacity of a mind-boggling 30,000 bottles. “The food is beautifully crafted, the surroundings, artwork and wine related material, intriguing. Expensive? Yes, of course…” – something that’s always been an issue here. It can also appear “that they are struggling with trying to simplify a traditional five star offering in a more modern style” and not all reporters feel that balance is always struck. The dominant verdict, though, is that “if you avoid the sillier priced rare wines, you may come away feeling it was worth every penny for such a joyful experience!”. Top Tip – in summer they also run ‘Lobster on the Lawn’ – a sociable dining experience built around fresh Cornish lobster and heritage breed sirloin steak.
12. London Street Brasserie
British, Modern restaurant in Reading
Riverside Oracle, 2 - 4 London Street - RG1
This “Reading institution” occupying an 18th-century tollhouse in the town centre has “had a few ups and downs over the last 25 years, but this year is back on top form with a solid menu and excellent service”. Self-taught chef owner Paul Clerehugh, a former rock guitarist with Sweet, also runs the Crooked Billet music pub in Stoke Row (see also).
13. Thames Lido
Spanish restaurant in Reading
Napier Road - RG1
“It would be damning with faint praise to say that this is one of Reading’s better restaurants, but it certainly is” – a “striking” and “carefully converted Lido” with spa, where you dine poolside and enjoy the “romantic” and “soothing” spectacle of “watching others swim whilst you eat”. “The dishes nod towards the Mediterranean and feature a wealth of flavours and textures”, as well as feeling “healthy and wholesome” (except, that is, the “naughty but nice” desserts). Some regulars here this year, though, said the food was “good, but not as good as on our last visit”.
14. The Bull Inn
International restaurant in Sonning-on-Thames
High St - RG4
“Beautiful, quintessential country pub” (the description has barely changed since Jerome K Jerome described it as “the veritable picture of an old country inn” in his 1889 classic ‘Three Men in a Boat’) with a “cosy, relaxed interior” and “reliably good food”. These days the pretty village has a reputation as an A-lister hotspot (George & Amal Clooney, Jimmy Page, Theresa May), but you’re still welcome in the Bull’s bar in a pair of shorts with a dog in tow for some “reliable” traditional fare.
15. The Greyhound
British, Modern restaurant in Henley-on-Thames
Gallowstree Rd, Peppard Common - RG9
In summer 2023, citing the need to ‘slow down’, TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson bowed out from his Oxfordshire gastropub after nearly two decades at the helm (the latter part of which was overshadowed by controversies relating to its anti-vaxxer stance, and, more recently, a worrying hygiene rating). While David Brown, who heads up Marlow’s Royal Oak has stepped into AWT’s shoes (the latter will remain on hand as a consultant), head chef Jamie Webber remains from the previous line-up, which should ensure continuity when it comes to the popular venue’s “generous” and “well-cooked” pub grub.
16. The Miller of Mansfield
British, Traditional restaurant in Goring-on-Thames
High St - RG8
2022 Review: “This superb gastropub” – an eighteenth-century inn “two minutes from the Thames and convenient for London day-trippers” – serves “interesting food with some high gastronomy”: “all produce is locally sourced, and bread made and butter churned in-house”. Husband-and-wife patrons Nick & Mary Galer (both ex-Fat Duck Group) “clearly care about what they do and look after their diners”. Ratings dropped a notch this year amid reports of “the odd off note” – possibly they “need a bit more practice after lockdown”.
17. The Crooked Billet
British, Modern restaurant in Stoke Row
Newlands Ln - RG9
One of the UK’s first wave of modern gastropubs (est. 1989, pipping the Eagle in Farringdon by a couple of years), this Chilterns village boozer serves an “imaginative menu which changes daily” in a “great atmosphere”. But there’s more to it: founder Paul Clerehugh is a former guitarist with 1970s glamrockers The Sweet, and organises “great music nights” in the pub’s heated marquee, attracting an eclectic line-up of performers (George Harrison in the early years; last year, Nigel Kennedy, the Bay City Rollers and Geno Washington).
18. Hearth, Heckfield Place
British, Modern restaurant in Heckfield
The ‘live-fire’ option at this Hampshire spa hotel offers “excellent if expensive food from the marvellous Skye Gyngell”, making best use of “lovely locally grown ingredients” and of an informal setting in the old stable block – for some guests it’s their “favourite of the Heckfield Place restaurants”, in preference to the more formal dining room-based Marle.
19. Marle, Heckfield Place
British, Modern restaurant in Heckfield
Heckfield Place - RG27
A Georgian country house hotel packed with British post-war art and “within easy reach of London” for the mini-break set; Skye Gyngell of Petersham Nurseries Café fame oversees the two restaurants, with Marle being the fancier, orangery-style dining room with a Michelin Green Star reflecting the hotel’s focus on sustainability. As in previous years, not everyone is convinced by the pared-back dishes, with those who “enjoyed the occasion” counterbalanced by those who found it “somewhat lacking – expected more”. But even cynics concede it’s still “above average”.
20. The Pot Kiln
Game restaurant in Frilsham
Yattendon Estate - RG18
Basque-influenced cuisine – much of it from the charcoal grill – is now the order of the day at this “beautifully situated” pub, deep in the back-of-beyond of West Berkshire (in fact quite close to the M4, though you’d never know). The days when it was famous for its game dishes are gone – today you will discover an assortment of tapas plus more substantial fare – from Catalan fish stew to ‘12 Hour Lamb Shoulder’. Fans say it’s "really lovely” and “very well executed”. On the downside, one or two old timers can’t get with it. (“I really want to like this pub, I have been coming for years and its situation and ambience is idyllic, quintessential English countryside. But the prices are expensive and the tapas-style small plates and mains to share just aren’t that inviting”).
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