Brookwood Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: The second link in the growing Brucan Pubs group, set up by James Lyon Shaw and Jamie Dobbin, who met during their days at the famous Ivy. By all accounts the three-year-old venture is “surprisingly good for a somewhat unprepossessing area”, and with “good-value set menus” to boot. Top Menu Tip – “in my experience the best dishes are the slow-cooked ones”.

Gordon Ramsay’s four-year-old fast-food chain – one of several diffusion brands from the TV chef – has half a dozen sites across the capital. Views on it have always been somewhat mixed and became even more polarised this year: between those who consider it “a great new discovery” and those who feel it’s “disappointing for an upmarket burger”.

“Smart pub/restaurant with a buzzy atmosphere” and “consistently good food from a large and varied menu” – built at the 19th-century height of the local brick industry, it’s a “great place to stop for lunch after a good walk in the countryside”, with “lovely log fires in the bar”.

Feedback has strengthened over the years regarding the much-accoladed, wood-panelled dining room in the oldest section of this plush Victorian pile in Surrey – nowadays a 124-room luxury hotel and spa – where chef Steve Smith has looked after the stoves since early 2020. It doesn’t attract huge volumes of reports, but its dedicated local fan-club regards it highly all-round. Dinner is a three-hour, seven-course affair at £175 per person, with four- and five-course options available at lunchtimes and on some evenings. The wine options here received particular praise this year.

“Excellent new arrival in this area”, with “consistently high-quality” modern European cooking, “warm and professional service” and “an attractive wine list” – “don’t be put off by the rather indifferent exterior on a fairly busy road; it’s beautiful inside, with two private dining rooms for larger parties and a nice outdoor space”. Formerly known as Sands at Bleak House, it is now run by Nick Levantis & Darryl Healey, the duo behind The Swan at West Malling in Kent. Interesting local fact – it’s on the edge of Horsell Common, where the first Martian invaders landed in H G Wells’s 1898 novel ‘The War of the Worlds’.