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Wine, dine and then recline. It’s a perfect combination. After all, how often have each of us wished we weren’t facing a car ride or train journey home after a great meal? But ‘restaurants-with-rooms’ are more than just convenient, they are destinations. A way to get out of the city or to celebrate an occasion and, of course, to experience dining out as part of a total experience. So, this week, we bring you the UK’s best restaurants-with-rooms…
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STEVE BARBER PHOTOGRAPHY
Hipping Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria
Dinner: £75 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £159 per night
“A delightful experience from beginning to end”; a “romantic” historically-housed hotel whose 15th-century hall makes a “beautiful” setting in which to dine; the food is usually “superb” too.
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Dinner: £90 pp with wine & service.
Rooms from: £160 per night
“The views are just amazing”, from this “sumptuous” former hunting lodge, overlooking Windermere; for the most part, reports are a hymn of praise to its “superb” cuisine and “professional” style, but some reporters do find the style “a little starchy and traditional”.
Dinner: £55 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £149 per night
“A little out of the way, but worth the effort to visit”, this New Forest country house and dining room wins particular acclaim for its “very chilled” style and “enthusiastic” staff, although the “impeccably sourced” food (with pork dishes a speciality) is good too.
Dinner: £75 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £125 per night
“Best food we’d eaten anywhere this year!”; James Close’s restaurant-with-rooms dishes up “wonderful combinations of taste and texture”, winning unanimous rave reviews for this “emerging star” – “off the beaten track, but worth a trip”.
Dinner: £68 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £50 per night
“Breathtaking attention to detail” makes Tim & Emma Ford’s “lovely” restaurant-with-rooms a “brilliant find” for all who comment on it; it can sometimes seem a touch “formal”.
Dinner: £80 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £260 per night
“Improved , even if it is flashier!” – after some “terrific renovations”, including a new kitchen, the North West’s most prominent restaurant-with-rooms “has moved up a gear” (and it was no slouch before); Lisa Allen’s cooking is “truly gorgeous”, and the “brilliantly compiled” wine list a major attraction in its own right.
Dinner: £90 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £220 per night
“The Bradleys are consummate hosts” and their “gorgeous” riverside restaurant-with-rooms “does everything incredibly well, but in a confident, relaxed and low-key kind of way”, not least cuisine that’s “creative without being silly or pretentious”.
Yalbury Cottage, Lower Bockhampton
Dinner: £53 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £99 per night
“Truly wow”, “the best meal we’ve eaten in a long time”… there’s no let-up in superlatives for Ariane & Jamie Jones’s “wonderful” (and remote) restaurant-with-rooms; only problem? – “you wants to eat everything”, so “pace yourself to leave room for the wonderful puds!”
Dinner: £64 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £135 per night
An “outstanding” restaurant-with-rooms that’s not just “by far the best place to eat (and stay) for miles around”, but of a quality that’s “very unexpected” – chef-proprietors “Stéphane Borie & Sarah Francis used to work at the Waterside Inn, and you get very similar quality at a fraction of the price!”
Dinner: £122 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £150 per night
“In the shadow of the ancient Cartmel Priory”, Simon Rogan’s “stunning” former smithy provides the setting for “an unforgettable and superlative experience”, but not a formal one; “the staff notice everything”, and the “adventurous but ungimmicky” cuisine is “constantly improving”.
Dinner: £200 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £560 per night
“Champagne and canapés by the Thames can’t fail to seduce” – the Roux family’s “magical” haven is at its romantic zenith on a sunny day; “it may not be at the culinary cutting edge”, but a meal here offers a “divine” combination of “sumptuous” classic cuisine and “seemless” service; the bill? – “heart-stopping”.
Dinner: £76 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £180 per night
“A great destination”; Bryan & Susan Webb’s “special” country house hotel has a “lovely” and “remote” rural location, and won Wales’s highest rating for cuisine this year – “top-class” food (and “not just in token portions either!”), and “complemented by a superb wine list”.
Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottingham
Dinner: £111 pp with wine & service
Rooms from: £140 per night
The “strange” city-fringe location is a bit “Crossroads Motel”… but “once you’re inside you can’t see the flyover and pylons”, from Sat Bains’s famous restaurant-with-rooms; “you’re here for the kitchen”, and the food is indeed “incredible” – just like the prices!
The Crown at Whitebrook, Whitebrook, Monmouthshire
Dinner and a night’s stay from £214 (excluding drinks)
“As good as ever under new ownership”, this celebrated restaurant-with-rooms, with a “heavenly” location in the Wye Valley, is back with a bang – service still seems to be settling in, but the “intricate and very well balanced” cooking is “stunningly good”.
