Ledbury Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: After the success of The Butchers Arms in Eldersfield, James & Elizabeth Winter have opened a new restaurant in this eighteenth-century, Grade II listed building in the heart of Ledbury, featuring two dining rooms seating just 12 between them. By early reports it's an “absolute gem” – “tiny”, “quirky” and offering “quite adventurous” choices from a “small but changing menu” based around local produce.

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”.

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”.

“A lovely setting – tucked away in a quiet-but-central location” beside the remains of Hereford’s castle moat adds to the joys of the Watkins family’s Grade II-listed Georgian hotel. Reports are limited, but all approve the cooking from Hungarian-born chef Gabor Katona (with much produce from the owners’ farm at Ballingham Hall, nearby).

2023 Review: The first bricks-and-mortar venture from Hereford’s 10 year-old ‘A Rule of Tum’ hospitality group, this local hit serves “top burgers in a great atmosphere”, with a focus on locally produced beef and other produce. A branch in Worcester has followed.

2022 Review: A steak-led “relative newcomer” – named for the former use of these premises – where the main event graces a “short, meat-focused menu” that “clearly concentrates on what they are skilled at” (though there’s also praise for the “second-to-none” coffee and cakes). “Fantastic staff” and a “great ambience” round out its charms…“if you take clients they never fail to be impressed”.

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: 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).

Name-checking the two salmon-rich rivers between which it sits, Richard & Shirley Cook’s storied smokery may have an “unassuming location and exterior”, but that “belies the excellent goods within” – the kind of goods that make them in hot demand as a supplier to royals, Fortnum’s and so (impressively) forth. Mark Stinchcombe, winner of the 2015 MasterChef: The Professionals competition, oversees the formal-ish upstairs restaurant, which remains in demand for its “delicious seafood and shellfish dishes”, and is “always busy, so book ahead unless you want to eat in the deli café” downstairs – part of a wider package that also includes an “interesting” shop.