Sedlescombe Restaurant Guide

“Paul Webbe’s original restaurant is still a pleasure to visit” almost three decades after opening, the farmhouse venue having since spawned a clutch of fish-centric spin-offs alongside a cookery school in Hastings. “Reliably old-fashioned (in the best possible way)”, it combines “superb service and some first-rate cooking” which, as per the name, is focussed on foraging, including “a marvellous set luncheon with a very large choice for each course at a reasonable price in this day and age”. For several reporters this is a place to “go back to on special occasions as the quality is very good”.

A “brilliant family-run pub (father and daughter duo, Dale Skinner and Harriet Bull, are at the helm) with excellent food and a lovely garden with views of Bodiam Castle”, plus comfortable rooms if you wish to stay. A former CAMRA ‘Country Pub of the Year’, its wide-ranging menu of classic boozer fare is always “excellent and the service exemplary” (“for a pub I cannot rate it too highly – open fire, good range of beer and a varied, seasonal menu”).