Great Malvern, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: Limited but all-round positive feedback on this relative newcomer – a country inn with rooms, relaunched in mid 2018, and serving a brasserie-style menu majoring in steak (also with lighter options at lunch).

2021 Review: “The quality of the chef is well known and the major attraction” at this timbered country house hotel, helmed by MasterChef: The Professionals winner Mark Stinchcombe; yet while his “excellent” farm-to-fork cuisine generally pleases, service strikes some reporters as “average”: “a tremendous amount of attention has been paid to the design of the cooking school adjacent but seemingly less to what makes a good fine-dining restaurant”.

2021 Review: It’s still early days for Grain Store chef, Mark Block, who took over this celebrated county inn in January 2018. While there’s the odd complaint – of food that’s “competent but has no zing” – the general sense is that, despite the former regime being “quite a tough act to follow, it’s doing nicely under the new ownership”: no longer chasing Michelin stars, but “very much a rural pub with good food”.

This “relaxing” brasserie on one of England’s oldest vineyards (the first vines were planted in 1973) has expanded over the years and now includes romantic, glass-walled lodges among the vines as well as bedrooms handily placed for its brasserie. The latter enjoys “great views” of the grapes, and its “tapas/small plates concept works well despite the menu not seeming to change very much (if at all!)”, with charcuterie and cheese boards sitting alongside other “fantastic” fare to help you soak up the booze – many of their own wines, of course (also available to sample on wine tours) but also ‘guest wines’ they admire. Best bit: it’s all “fairly priced”.

2022 Review: Rescued by local regulars from the threat of demolition six years ago, this 200-year-old former drovers’ pub (‘bait’ as in ‘bite’ or ‘snack’) is now an upmarket pub-with-rooms on the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border, serving food of a “consistently high standard”. “The lamb dishes are particularly delicious” (Kate Lane, one of the co-owners, farms sheep). Building on their success here, Kate and her lawyer husband Andrew Cornthwaite now have a growing collection of reinvigorated village pubs.

“Brilliant flavours in a sublime setting” have helped win renown for this “lovely” converted barn on owner Peta Darnley’s 1,200 acre family estate, where head chef Chris Simpson helped it carry off Visit England’s ‘Taste of England’ award as best restaurant in 2023. On the downside, its ratings took a slight knock this year, with a few diners being “a bit underwhelmed given the hype”: they query, “has it all gone to their heads?” and discern “a slight preciousness” in the overall approach. Most accounts, though, continue to applaud its “exceptional” overall standards.