Dorset, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

Michael Trawicki’s “popular thatched pub” serves particularly “good pub food in a nice sunny dining room” and there’s also a beautiful garden in summer. It’s not an especially ‘foodie’ operation but attracts consistent praise in our annual diners’ poll as one of the area’s better eateries.

“A gorgeous, sunny room attached to a medieval priory on the banks of the River Frome” is the “delightful setting” for “always interesting and very good” cooking from Loire Valley-bred Stephan Guinebault, head chef for the best part of two decades at this independently owned hotel which oozes “old-world charm”.

“A great and romantic hideaway” – the Red Carnation group’s “traditional country hotel never disappoints for comfort”. The dining room offers straightforward but well-realised cooking from a two-course or three-course à la carte menu: food that’s “well presented and interesting but not too fancy”.

2023 Review: This “quaint pub in the tiny village of Evershot” – immortalised as the ‘Sow and Acorn’ in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ – offers “beautifully presented, consistently good and interesting” food from Kenyan-born chef Robert Ndungu. It is the more informal sibling of Summer Lodge on the other side of the village, from the Red Carnation hotel group.

2023 Review: This “brilliant thatched country pub” has “lots of game dishes” on its menu – appropriately enough for a traditional establishment in the historical hunting landscape of Cranborne Chase. “Vegetarians and vegans are well provided for” too, while there’s also a “well-stocked bar with local ales and a reasonably priced wine list”.

“Great modern European food using locally sourced ingredients at very reasonable prices” again wins praise for this local fixture. Chef-patron Sasha Matkevich grew up in south Russia but has lived in England for 30 years.

For a “very good French meal” (chef Paul Merrony trained at Le Gavroche no less) that’s “relatively inexpensive and with personal service”, try this bistro-with-rooms – “the exemplar of a local restaurant”, where the “fantastically fresh food” (ranging from ratatouille to rillettes and rabbit blanquette) makes you feel like you’re in France only “without the ferry journey”.

“The very best meal I have enjoyed in the last year!”… “Exceptional” – chef Mike Naidoo’s sustainable seafood restaurant on a mezzanine in the waterside Old Fish Market has proved a “brilliant addition to the Weymouth food scene” since it opened three years ago. The “exceptional” dayboat catch is translated into set menus, with the £45 four-course lunch itself a particularly good catch from the (slightly bewildering) array of menus, with different options served early evening, midweek dinner (six courses) and Saturday dinner (eight courses). One visitor in particular went a bundle on it this year, in the shape of The Times’s Giles Coren who, in his March 2024 review – “reeling from the quality” – thought it might just be “the best restaurant in the world”… “omigodomigodomigod”.

This “newly refurbished family-owned pub with rooms” – originally a mid-Victorian cider house – in a “lovely village” near Sherborne, makes for a “perfect stop-over en route to Devon or Cornwall”, with “agreeable service” and “reliable food including interesting fish dishes”. Co-owner Doune Mackenzie-Francis has a foodie background as a former marketing manager for Leith’s School of Food & WIne.

2022 Review: “A friendly and welcoming atmosphere” marks out this thatched fifteenth-century gastroboozer, where the “high-quality fresh local produce” (but also more adventurous sourcing, including from Paris’s famous Rungis market) leads to some “interesting variations on the traditional style”.

“The view overlooking Poole Harbour makes this a romantic location” for an Italian meal – although it’s “very much a good-weather venue”. The hotel is at the heart of a long-running planning dispute, with vocal locals opposing a plan to convert it into an ‘aparthotel’ under a £300m redevelopment of Sandbanks.

2022 Review: A “beautifully situated restaurant” in an Art Deco solarium overlooking Poole Harbour, and where “drinks on the upper deck are an extra delight”. One or two off reports on the food front this year, but also plenty of plaudits for its “really good breakfasts and lunches”, and “service has improved” of late too.

Darren Brown’s paradisiacal Wiltshire kitchen (est. 2016) is “a magical place” that “perfectly celebrates the unique local produce” which is sourced from its own three-acre plot and then cooked up in the fire pit to “sublime” results. Alongside serving lunch from Wednesday to Saturday, they’re now open for dinner on Saturday evenings from November to February, and there are also long-table ‘Savour the Season’ suppers around each Equinox and Solstice, plus Sunday lunches, where individual joints of meat are cooked to order and brought to the table to avoid wastage. If you’re keen to linger, beyond the orchard at the bottom of the garden is a glamping village with six bell tents.

2022 Review: Cass Titcombe's “small, cosy and friendly restaurant overlooking the village square” offers “just the perfect balance of everything”, say fans – whether that’s the much-foraged, Mediterranean-style food, or the fine interiors, courtesy of partner Louise. The duo also run an excellent shop, Brassica Mercantile, across the road, mixing homewares, foodie books and gourmet treats (including from Borough Market).

“An absolutely gorgeous building (a former school, very similar to a church)” that has won beauty awards from Condé Nast Traveller plays host to this “upmarket rural” restaurant by Luke Sutton, who honed his craft at the acclaimed L’Ortolan in Berkshire. A number of visiting Londoners feel the “well-executed” modern British cooking is rather “hyped” and “expensive with a capital E, even for Sherborne”. More positive reporters would say that just highlights the “remarkable value” set menus (three courses £29 per person), and if you’ve change to spare, you can visit the equally glamorous bar on the mezzanine.

2023 Review: This “nice gastropub with large gardens” has undergone a dramatic £800,000 refurb since our annual diners’ poll, to be reborn with cocktail bar-style décor replacing the traditional pub interior, and fitted seating with cushions in the 100-seater garden. The new menu replaces standard 3-course meals with a globally inspired selection of small plates.

The “perfect location” overlooking Chesil Beach, “knowledgeable and friendly staff” and “delicious and changing menu” tick most of the boxes at this Art Deco-style seaside venue with plenty of outdoor seating – although a significant minority reckon it’s “disappointing compared to previous visits”.