Staffordshire, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: A “smart hotel” with its own lake set in the Staffs countryside, where the “cosy restaurant serves good value food using local produce”. Tuesday night is grill night – on other evenings steaks and pub classics feature on the menu alongside somewhat fancier fare.

“You are served in a large dining room under a giant moon” in this striking eatery – a centrepiece of the World of Wedgwood – which was added to this factory-visit and museum experience in late 2021. Named for a seventeenth-century dining club filled with luminaries of the Midlands Enlightenment, and overseen by local lad Niall Keating (who left behind two Michelin stars to take up the opportunity), it brings a pleasing level of ambition to underserved Staffs and The Potteries. There’s a relatively affordable à la carte menu, or an eight-course tasting menu for £120 per person. Given that its mere presence is a minor miracle in the area, it’s not hard to be bowled over and it delivers “frequently excellent dishes – often containing luxury ingredients, formally but attentively and helpfully served, if in a space that is perhaps a little large to feel completely at home in”. On the flip-side, even those who think it “very good” can still find it “overpriced”.