Not so long ago the hotel restaurant was a place to avoid – either a place of uptight waiters and starched tablecloths or a depressing affair with marked-up wine bottles and fruit cocktail served as a starter. Luckily times have changed. Hotels have woken up to the fact that their guests can eat elsewhere if they choose, and restauranteurs and gastro-pubbers are realising that their guests would have much more fun if they could stay over, so they're converting the spare rooms above the shop to lovely boutique boltholes that even drunken foodies can find their way to after one too many armagnacs. We reckon this is a phenomenon worth celebrating, so here are some of our favourite foodie places to stay.
Lord Crewe Arms, Northumberland
An extraordinary building with 21 rooms in an updated country-chic style and the best roast chicken in Christendom.
Mount Haven Hotel, Cornwall
Top-notch accommodation and everything from a Cornish crab sandwich after a dog-walk on the beach to a three-course gourmet dinner conjured up from the best local ingredients.
Crug Glas Country House, Pembrokeshire
Boutique country house hotel in a superb location that has a cosy restaurant serving great local fish and seafood, Welsh lamb and Pembrokeshire beef and venison.
Old Downton Lodge, Shropshire
One of the most comfortable rural boltholes you could imagine, with a superb restaurant atmospherically housed in the lodge's grand Norman hall and serving inventive seasonal tasting menus.
The Bull & Swan, Lincolnshire
This cosy dog-friendly pub has seven comfortable and contemporary guest rooms upstairs and serves a blend of traditional yet up-to-date food that's been similarly updated and is a cut above regular pub grub. We also love the fact that they have a room-service menu for pooches, and Stamford is one of our favourite towns in all England.
Maison Talbooth, Essex
A comfortable boutique hotel from which you can be whisked off in the hotel's Range Rover to their nearby fine dining restaurant, La Talbooth, which has a lovely location by the river and a fab terrace to enjoy it from during summer.
The Running Horses, Surrey
A revamped old coaching inn with five upstairs room that serves a deliberately simple and pleasingly short menu of fab rustic British food.
The Peacock at Rowsley, Derbyshire
A lovely seventeenth-century Peak District pub that has an elegant restaurant and cosy bar downstairs – a joy after a hard day's walking ro cycling the nearby hills.
Beechwood Hotel, Norfolk
This tempting boutique bolt-hole makes a perfect base for the northern Norfolk Broads and nearby Norfolk coast and has an elegant yet relaxed restaurant that is famous for its 'ten-mile dinners' (the furthest away the chef likes to get his ingredients).
The Angel at Hetton, North Yorkshire
One of the Yorkshire Dales' most celebrated gourmet-dining destinations, and the accommodation is pretty snazzy too, with four-posters and more.
Browns Hotel, Devon
A cool and contemporary hotel with stylish rooms and a restaurant serving food with a distinctively Spanish flavour that usually includes a tasty ‘catch of the day’ from nearby Brixham fish market.
The Plough at Lupton, Cumbria
A country inn that's a cut above the norm, not only for its five classy rooms but also for its excellent informal restaurant downstairs, which serves local produce cooked with a Mediterranean twist.
For more, see our Pubs with Rooms collection.
