Melton Mowbray Restaurant Guide

“Exquisite cooking” using “quality ingredients” are the watchwords at this “thoroughly professional outfit” – a converted village forge from former Savoy chef Danny Jimminson and his wife Sandra. (This year’s biggest complaint? “We left feeling uncomfortably full. We think it‘s our age. The cooking is exquisite but for younger folks with bigger appetites!”)

“Bravo Hitchens!” – this “consistently excellent” barn conversion is “a template for the perfect neighbourhood restaurant, owned and run by a talented chef and his charming wife” (Neil & Louise Hitchen, who met working at local powerhouse Hambleton Hall more than 20 years ago). “The interior is bistro-esque and relaxing”; and the “beautiful seasonal food” delivers “real value for money”: “flavour combinations are carefully created, with each dish superbly planned and cooked to maximise taste. Fish has to come from afar (Cornish turbot on the bone) but nearly all else is sourced from local suppliers”. Top Menu Tip – “game in season is a standout”.

This “superb old-style country-house hotel” is “the best place in the area by a country mile”, and still at the top of its game under Lila Arora, whose late grandmother Imogen Skirving converted it from her family home. Exec chef Gary Booth oversees a “very good” menu with a focus on seasonal local produce from the nearby Belvoir estate – and “the private dining room is fantastic”.

“A go-to destination in Rutland” – “always deservedly very busy and utterly recommended for its delicious and different dishes (especially fish and seafood)”, this “part pub but mostly restaurant” has won widespread recognition over the past 16 years under ex-Bibendum chef Carol and her waiter husband Scott Craddock. Top Menu Tip – “escargots in garlic butter as a homage to the past!”.

“Always a favourite”, this 17th-century country inn is a “lovely old” place – “at least in the bar and older parts” (there being a “less lovely modern bit on the back built to take advantage of the location with fine views over Rutland Water”). The “food is pretty much standard gastropub fare”, but makes for handy refuelling before a walk round the reservoir.

“Ordered too much and enjoyed it all” sums up the appeal of this Gujarati vegetarian, a Leicester institution with “lovely staff”, that opened on the city‘s ‘Golden Mile’ in 1976 and is now run by Dharmesh, son of the late founder Bhagwanjibhai Lakhani and his wife Manglaben. Top Menu Tip – book ahead for the £25 bottomless afternoon tea, hailed by Rick Stein on his BBC Food Stories show last year as an ‘Indian version of tea at The Ritz’.

“Wonderful Keralan cuisine” – “fresh and full of flavour”; “mainly vegetarian but also excellent seafood” – is on the menu at this 20-year-old Leicester flagship near ‘The Tigers’ stadium. (It’s nowadays part of a group that now has spin-off venues in Nottingham, Leamington Spa and West Byfleet.)

2021 Review: Cyrus Todiwala OBE, the acclaimed Bombay-born TV-chef behind London’s Café Spice Namaste, has chosen a Grade II listed building in the city-centre for his first restaurant outside London; and will feature five separate areas over two floors, including a bar, casual dining and fine dining room. For the town with the biggest Diwali festival outside India, Leicester has always curiously lacked a go-to Indian dining destination – maybe this is it?

“Exceptional” cuisine is still the norm in feedback on Harry & Caroline Hallam’s quirky, 10-seat venture, which has survived for over 30 years in the front room of their Georgian house, with Caroline front of house and Harry in the kitchen. That said, reports are not as plentiful as once they were, and the times when it had a Michelin Star (until about 2010) now seem a distant memory. Perhaps, despite its ongoing quality, people are just more used to the idea of pop-ups and supper clubs than once they were?

In a converted barn on a farm near Plungar, 30 minutes’ drive from Nottingham, self-taught chef Rich and his wife Grace serve a 20-course tasting menu. In her November 2024 review, Charlotte Ivers of the Sunday Times was enthralled by the ‘magic’ of the kitchen.