Chipping Campden, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This “lovely, chic restaurant in a pretty and historic Worcestershire Cotswold town” offers “a great dining experience” with “some excellent dishes, beautifully served and delightfully prepared”. A new owner, Birmingham-based Roger Dudley, has taken over from Andrew & Gaynor Riley, who ran the property for 18 years, but chef George Santos and his kitchen team have carried on much as before.

James Martin is the latest in the line of c’leb chefs to have his name over the door of the barrel-vaulted dining room of this historic Tudor coaching inn (which accommodated both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell at different times during the Civil War). Iconic Luxury Hotels Group (who run Cliveden and Chewton Glen) have managed the property for some time, and pre-rebrand the feedback continued the downbeat tenor – “such a disappointment…”, “trading on its name and reputation” – of recent decades. Here’s hoping James can bring some of the magic here that’s created in Chewton Glen and that this fine space finally starts to live up to its potential.

2021 Review: Classic, “lovely” Cotswolds inn, with rooms, that’s well-reviewed in all feedback for its “good pub food”. Even those who find it dependable, however, can feel that the menu “could use some more interesting dishes”.

2023 Review: A “country house atmosphere”, “excellent service” and “delicious food” win praise from fans of this “beautiful” Cotswolds hotel – owned by greetings card mogul Andrew Brownsword – and it “should please every romantic”. Ratings were dragged down, though, by other reporters who feel that the house is “lovely but tired”, while “the food is good-ish, but certainly could be better”.

This “excellent inn” on the northern edge of the Cotswolds (West Midlands Tourism’s Best Pub of the Year 2023) is “exactly what a large village local should be, but so rarely is”. The menu is a bit posh to be described as pub grub and there are alternative options, both for vegans, and for special evenings (for example, game suppers in season).

2022 Review: On the banks of the Avon, this riverside eaterie boasts an excellent terrace overlooking a scenic Saxon bridge. It serves a modern bistro menu, with char-grilled steaks the prime attraction.

2022 Review: In an attractive Cotswolds Hamlet, this ivy-covered sixteenth-century pub has been included in our guide for many years as somewhere that’s a cut above, with lovely courtyard garden, real ales and superior grub. With its 80 inside seats and 40 on the terrace, it was taken over in mid-2021 and given a refurb by Lady Carole Bamford, owner of nearby Daylesford Organic. Too few reports for a rating, but very early feedback says it’s “happily survived Covid and good all-round”.

“The Fox has had a major makeover since the old days when it had the ambience of a venerable Cotswold pub” – as you’d expect since the July 2022 takeover by Lady Bamford and her Daylesford empire. Some old timers feel “the money lavished on its gentrification has not resulted in improvement”, although they concede the result is “very comfortable” and deliver a thumbs-up to its selection of posh pub grub (pizza, steak, burgers and Cornish fish for the most part). In early 2023, Giles Coren declared himself a fan too, even if there was nowhere close to park that wasn’t already taken by “gleaming Land Rovers and Porsches, piled three deep in the narrow lanes and stacked on pavements”.

Richard & Solanche Craven’s “exceptional” venue in a converted village pub on the northern fringe of the Cotswolds is “well worth the detour” for its “well-judged menu” of “beautifully cooked” dishes (many with foraged ingredients) and “democratically inclined wine list” in a “very attractive space”. You don’t have to endure a massive number of courses either, with evening options starting with a four-course menu for £80 per person.

2022 Review: “High-quality service and food” are on the menu at this famous Cotswolds hotel – a sumptuous seventeenth-century former aristocratic vicarage in honey-coloured local stone. In his first appointment as head chef, Charles Smith, who has a stint at New York’s Per Se on his impressive CV, has launched the new Atrium dining space (see also); more relaxed meals are available in the Dining Room.

2022 Review: Limited but upbeat feedback on this relatively recent (2019) addition to the well-known Cotswolds manor house, with Charles Smith delivering a nine-course tasting menu for £95. Fans do say it’s “wonderful”, but we have to leave a rating till we have a few more reports.

Lady Bamford’s two-decade-old farm shop and café may be “home to the Chipping Norton set” but it’s “delightful” nonetheless, especially “when the weather is pleasant enough to sit out under the brollies in the courtyard and people-watch while having something tasty for lunch”. Popularity doesn’t come cheap, but one reporter found it “very reasonably priced” this year, bucking the usual critiques.

“Just sit back and enjoy the spectacular cooking that comes from a passionate chef’s imagination… and Paul Foster’s imagination is worth the journey for an evening’s adventure in wonderland!” – This “rather quirky restaurant” in a timbered building is “more comfortable” after a recent renovation, and “the location close to a number of historical Stratford sites also adds to the pleasure of dining there”. “Dinner is tasting-menu only, but at an amazingly good-value price”; and “it’s a testament to the standard of cuisine that despite opening only a few years before Covid it survived and has now expanded to provide a chef’s table and cookery school”.

“The location is great, the staff are helpful and a good ambience is generated by the pre-theatre buzz” at the RSC’s in-house top-floor venue. Food-wise, “there are better places in Stratford for a pre-theatre meal”, although some reporters reckon “the standard of cooking has improved” and it’s now “worth a visit even if you’re not going to the theatre”. Top Tip – “book early enough & you’re more likely to get a coveted window table overlooking the river and swans”.

Game guru Mike Robinson’s “lovely, spacious” Shakespearean-era beamed dining room in the “very smartly renovated Indigo hotel”; “head chef Greg Newman has revitalised the venue since arriving in 2022” and the food (“very generous, almost excessively so, portions of locally sourced food, with a particular emphasis on game and wood-fired cooking”) comes with “lots of flavour”.

“Constant high quality both in taste and inventiveness” has been a hallmark of chef-patron Gus Ashenford’s cooking at the “always delightful” small restaurant, a converted Cotswold tea room, he has run with his wife Kate for two decades. His modern British dishes, underpinned by the French classical techniques he learned under his mentor, the late Michel Roux Senior, invariably “look beautiful on the plate”.