Rugeley, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: A “smart hotel” with its own lake set in the Staffs countryside, where the “cosy restaurant serves good value food using local produce”. Tuesday night is grill night – on other evenings steaks and pub classics feature on the menu alongside somewhat fancier fare.

“In the middle of nowhere geographically speaking, but attentive service and innovative cooking make this a number one restaurant venue” – chef-patron Liam Dillon has transformed this former pub since 2017 into a champion of sustainability, with its own micro-farm incorporating a water treatment plant with ponds to breed trout and carp. It impresses all of the Midlands-based reporters who make the trip – at dinner there’s a short tasting menu for £75 per person or a full version for £110 per person (while at lunch, prices start at two courses for £42 for a short à la carte menu).

Opposite a leafy churchyard in a small town south of Stoke-on-Trent, this unassuming “gem” is rated on ongoing upbeat feedback from a small, dedicated fan base, praising its “fantastically skillful food with a brilliant balance of flavours”. Sophie Hardman & Jake Lowndes are celebrating their tenth year of business in 2026 and offer imaginative cuisine from either à la carte or tasting menus, the latter is £90 per person.

“Magnificent cooking” from Tom Shepherd justifies the bet made by his father four years ago when he commissioned the “smart” conversion of the first-floor space above his jewellery shop in the centre of town to accommodate a new 28-cover dining room with open kitchen to showcase his son’s cooking. Awards – including a position in the Harden’s Best UK Top 100 2025 – have followed for this “friendly, warm and unpretentious” venue, where you eat from a seven-course tasting menu of high ambition. Its ratings dipped a little in this year’s annual diners’ poll however, as a result of feedback which – though relentlessly positive – included more caveats than previously (“very good, but the very long waiting list made expectations hard to meet…”; “as popular as ever, but it all felt a little frenetic and prices seem to have risen steadily…”).