Nun Monkton, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This multi-tasking country inn “ticks all the boxes”: award-winning bedrooms, a pretty setting on the village green, and a “really well thought-out menu” now including summer pizzas al fresco (extra points for hosting the country’s tallest maypole). “All too rare these days, it works equally well as a village pub and as a very good restaurant”, and service is highly “personable” too – particularly if you get “a personal welcome and tour round on arrival from Claire Topham”, who made the name of the General Tartleton at Ferrensby alongside husband John, before the duo launched this venue.