Market Harborough Restaurant Guide

In the hands of Stephen & Tracey Fitzpatrick (also of the Joiners Arms at Bruntingthorpe), this village boozer with four rooms dates back to the 16th century and has preserved its traditional bar, which is rounded out by a modern restaurant leading out to the tranquil patio. The food is of the hearty, carnivorous kind, with Friday fish ‘n’ chip nights, once-monthly steak nights, and Auberge Mondays, where a three-course meal racks in at a bargain £22.50 per person.

“Wonderful Keralan cuisine” – “fresh and full of flavour”; “mainly vegetarian but also excellent seafood” – is on the menu at this 20-year-old Leicester flagship near ‘The Tigers’ stadium. (It’s nowadays part of a group that now has spin-off venues in Nottingham, Leamington Spa and West Byfleet.)

“Ordered too much and enjoyed it all” sums up the appeal of this Gujarati vegetarian, a Leicester institution with “lovely staff”, that opened on the city‘s ‘Golden Mile’ in 1976 and is now run by Dharmesh, son of the late founder Bhagwanjibhai Lakhani and his wife Manglaben. Top Menu Tip – book ahead for the £25 bottomless afternoon tea, hailed by Rick Stein on his BBC Food Stories show last year as an ‘Indian version of tea at The Ritz’.