The Devonshire Arms

Don't be put off by North Yorkshire, it's nearer than you think with motorways, fast trains and even room for your chopper to land. The Devonshire Arms is posh but comfortable without being pompous. A reassuring line of boots and Barbours at the front door lures you outdoors for wild scenery, dramatic ruins of medieval Bolton Abbey, and pretty villages. Indoors it's all deep sofas and snug corners hung with pictures from the Duke of Devonshire's own collection, including a room of dog portraits who feel like family friends. There are romantic bedrooms, friendly staff, and in warmer months, a beautiful walled garden full of flowers with a small beck running through it - just the place to idly read a book (not your Blackberry). There's a spa and indoor pool (but you'll prefer the riverbank walk past immemorial oaks), and a bold modern brasserie with bright colours, contemporary art and informal cooking. Gourmets head for the Burlington restaurant where Michael Wignall has held a Michelin star for 11 years for accomplished cooking using luxury and local produce (like Lancashire piglet and Lakeland lamb) with the same enthusiasm. The award-winning wine list can rival London's finest with 2,000 bins and the largest collection of big bottles (magnums +) outside the capital. The list is brilliantly managed by Nigel Fairclough, the cellarmaster, and general manager Eric Arnes. Put yourself into their hands and be surprised by suggestions that are just right for your food, palate and budget. You won't want to go home. Bolton Abbey, Skipton, North Yorkshire, 01756 710441 www.devonshirehotels.co.uk

 

The Trouble House

If a chef has worked in London kitchens like Pied à Terre, the Oak Room, Mirabelle and Pont de la Tour, you'd expect him to be sniffy about places outside the West End. But Martin Caws is different. After two years establishing Village East as restaurant of choice for the hip Bermondsey crowd, he has left London to take over The Trouble House, an enchanting 17th century stone-built property with bags of atmosphere. The previous occupant of this Wadsworth pub had a Michelin star for seven years and Caws is confident he can keep the award, especially with his serenely beautiful Latvian wife Neringa handling front-of house. The Trouble House was an old coaching inn with a history studded with ghosts and highwaymen. Now it's a restaurant with cosy interconnected rooms, low ceilings and lopsided walls, a traditional pub bar and a large sunny garden to the rear stretching away to fields in the distance. There is a regular and enthusiastic clientele drawn from the prosperous neighbourhood which includes farmers, land agents, professionals, Prince Charles at nearby Highgrove and well-off weekenders. The new chef is giving them substantial British cooking like braised ox cheeks or rump of lamb with hint of the exotic, like roast turbot with oyster fritters, or tuna carpaccio with avocado and sesame puree. It's definitely working and many customers are already regulars, on first name terms. It's a successful new chapter for the Caws and their baby son Lucas who will no doubt enjoy growing up far away from London Bridge.
Cirencester Road, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, 01666 502206

 

Old House at Home

You don't expect the perfect English village close to Basingstoke, but here it is, just 40 miles from London and close to Junction 5 on the M3. "A fag away from the motorway" says Suki Williams who runs the place with her husband Olly. It was an old pub but is now indisputably a restaurant though the bar attracts a definite pubby hard core of regulars. It's a red brick building dating back to 1850 with tables in two connecting rooms and more in a wooden shed that makes a useful private room for large parties. Unpretentious furniture, nice pictures and two large terraces front and back that catch all the sunshine. Suki leads the kitchen team and Olly does the wine and front of house. You can eat foie gras with toasted brioche, scallops with bubble & squeak, a superior burger made with proper rump steak, a fishy delight of crayfish, clams, scallops and garlic linguini, veal with wild mushroom ragu, and sinful puddings. They offer Maltesers instead of poncey chocolate with high cocoa solids. It's a Youngs' pub but you wouldn't know it from the wide-ranging wine list and slick, urbane service. The tone is just right for the neighbourhood and their regulars - CEOs and their families, guests from the nearby Four Seasons keen to find a bit of atmosphere, ladies who lunch, and lots of doctors and consultants who've colonised this part of the country. Olly says some nights it's like a club. Suki's dad is cricket legend Henry Blofeld who seems to know every "dear old thing" in the room. It's that sort of place. And Newnham has picture-postcard houses and a perfect village green. You couldn't make it up - it's like a movie. Where is Miss Marple?
Newnham Green, Newnham, Hook, Hampshire, 01256 762222

 

The Hand & Flowers

It's been a huge success story for Tom and Beth Kerridge since taking over this Greene King pub in March 2005. The food merits the same respect as famous London restaurants and the pub is a regular haunt of top chefs on their day off like Heston Blumenthal at nearby Bray. With Tom in the kitchen and Beth out front, they have picked up an astonishing selection of awards from newspapers, the AA, Michelin ( a star after less than a year), glossy magazines and all the critics. The basics remain the same: wholesome British cooking prepared with flair and served in a quaint Listed building that has been subtly modernised to keep it fresh and unclichéd. Now they've added a luxury B&B dimension with Flower Cottage containing two lavish double bedrooms each with a sofa, TV, DVD player and decadent bathroom. Real dirty weekend stuff, it's terrific. Prices include breakfast in the pub or in your own suite, and while you don't need to eat at the Hand & Flowers, you'd be crazy not to. Beth and Tom are not your normal landlords and they've built up a great atmosphere in their gastro-pub extraordinaire. Tom has always been a chef but she was a welder (yes really) for sculptor Anthony Caro, and she's an artist in her own right. They met at the Comedy Club and their love of humour shines through everything they do. Marlow is lucky to have them. 126 West Street, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, 01628 482277 www.thehandandflowers.co.uk

 

Le Poussin at Whitley Ridge

Le Poussin is a moveable feast. This highly-regarded restaurant owned by Michelin-starred Alex Aitken has lodged in several sites in the New Forest area and even now is simply in a temporary home until the final, and much grander location is finished next autumn. The Aitken family started off with a successful restaurant in Brockenhurst. As the business grew, they moved into their hotel, Parkhill in Lyndhurst. The Brockenhurst town site morphed into Simply Poussin serving a scaled-down version of Alex's signature French style. Plans were soon underway for a dramatic expansion of Parkhill with more rooms and a spa. Le Poussin moved into Whitley Ridge, another hotel in the group. Are you still with me? Keep up. The one constant in all this change is Le Poussin, a restaurant that has grown in confidence with every move. It will move back into Parkhill late 2008 and become probably the most accomplished restaurant in the area. It is already a gourmet destination for fine, classical cooking with luxurious ingredients and a happy knack of sourcing local products. (The large gardens at Whitley Ridge house some of the happiest chickens you'll ever see and breakfast eggs are superb.) For the weekender, this is a lovely, relaxed place. The handsome 18th century house with 14 acres of parkland was originally a hunting lodge in the heart of the New Forest. There are comfortable rooms in the main building or you can stay in furnished cottages just right for larger parties. There is a large sunny terrace, magnificent specimen trees and an idyllic setting. This is more a "house in the country" than a stuffy country house hotel. And as for the future, watch this space. The Aitken family aren't standing still and Le Poussin is about to hatch her chicks. Beaulieu Road, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, 01590 622354 www.whitleyridge.com

 

The Rectory Hotel

Hotels work best when the aims of owners and guests coincide. Julian Muggeridge, a former fine art and antiques dealer, and Jonathan Barry, a graduate of the Hotel du Vin school of excellence, have made this lovely 17th century house into the sort of comfortable, homely place they would like to stay in themselves. This is the countryside transformed into easy-going chic that's perfect for a stylish metropolitan crowd. The Cotswold stone building is blessed with high ceilings, huge windows, panelling, and open fires while the gardens have stately copper beech trees, wisteria-covered walls, a lily pond, croquet lawn and an outdoor swimming pool. Interiors mix antiques, four poster beds and wooden beams with contemporary touches like modern artwork, a Bill Amberg leather bar, power showers, deep baths and handmade toiletries from Arran Aromatics. Children and dogs are very welcome with babysitters available for grown-up time. The restaurant serves food that ticks all the buttons for today's gourmets sympathetic to the Slow Food movement: seasonal, GM-free, locally sourced and organic where possible. The Rectory has its own deli in the heart of Cirencester with fresh soups, bread, terrines and tarts, picnics and dinner parties in a box for time-pressed foodies. Just 100 yards from the hotel, the Rectory team are shortly opening the Potting Shed pub in a Grade 11 Listed building. It will have outdoor seating all year round with an awning and comfy woollen blankets for crisp days and on a plot behind the pub, a large organic garden is being prepared for spring. The Rectory is just two years old but already feels like a landmark. Crudwell, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, 01666 577194 www.therectoryhotel.com

 

A washout summer and hellish airports, you deserve something better for autumn. A country weekend for instance. The leaves are turning, the weather's mild, and England beckons. Get up and go.

Must try...

If you are staying at the Devonshire Arms, arrange a tour by car with wonderful Eddie who is the best guide to the area. He'll show you round the Duke's vast estate of farms and moorland, take you up to high tops that look over other dales and counties, and he'll explain the heart-stoppingly beautiful Bolton Abbey, victim of Henry V111's dissolution of the monasteries. The river Wharfe runs past the churchyard where the great Yorkshire cricketer Freddie Truman is buried along with centuries of local gentry.

There are no rooms at Old House at Home so bag a room at this farmhouse B&B close to the historic village of Old Basing and the beautiful Basingstoke Canal. You can hire boats at nearby Odiham. Hodds Farm is open all year round and is suitable for families as well as high fliers. Cots and highchairs are available and each room has wireless broadband.
Hodds Farm B&B, Ashmoor Lane, Old Basing, Basingstoke, 01256 335883 www.hoddsfarm.co.uk

For a weekend away, it doesn't get much better than the New Forest. There are endless paths for walking, cycling and picnics, pretty villages like Lyndhurst, Lymington, Beaulieu and Brockenhurst with antique shops and local fetes, and the New Forest ponies are unbelievably photogenic.