French chef Raymond Blanc has held two Michelin stars in this quintessential English hotel for more than three decades – and you can see why with each bite of the tasting menu. Cookery school courses reveal some of his kitchen secrets.

You know they take their food seriously when you hear that chef Dervilla O’Flynn doesn’t compose her menus until the afternoon, when fresh fish is delivered. Fruit and vegetables are from the walled garden, meat from their organic farm.

It’s a long drive to this remote spot, but it’s worth it for lochside views and fish so fresh it practically swims to the door. Tommy Barney can turn his hand to local langoustine or lamb. And you can get a picnic to take seal spotting.

A decade after opening, Robin Hutson’s first Pig hotel is as obsessive as ever about locally sourced food, used to create outstanding, original and unpretentious dishes. Alongside plenty of piggy bits are options for vegetarians.

The quayside position here means you can expect plenty of locally landed fish and seafood on the menu. Other local specialities from Welsh lamb to laver bread also feature among Ludo Dieumegard’s unpretentious but flavourful dishes.

The restaurant may resemble a traditional college buttery but Tristan Welch’s modern fare couldn’t be further from canteen fodder. Alongside Norfolk fruits de mer and truffle risotto, he does, though, do a very special bolognese.

Don’t fill up on the shortbread in the rooms of this Scottish manse, especially if you’re having the eight-course tasting menu. Ian McAndrew creates interesting dishes such as roast-onion ice cream as well as classic aged Scotch beef.

You can order something as simple as a sarnie with a pint at James and Kate Mackenzie’s historic inn. But in the bar and the restaurant, you’ll also find Michelin-starred cuisine such as rabbit with black pudding and white-bean crumble.

Food can’t get much more farm-to- fork than on this Avon Valley estate, which rears Aberdeen Angus cattle and Gloucester Old Spot pigs. Produce from the orchard and the vegetable and herb gardens is used in both the restaurant and the cookery school.

New chef Matthew Whitfield has swapped the triple-Michelin-starred restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York for this comfortable Arts and Crafts style hotel in a bucolic New Forest village. His new home is emphatically the winner; dishes at its formal restaurant, The Terrace, may include slow cooked squid with cauliflower, confit mushroom, roasted shitake consomme (from the seven-course tasting menu).

Dinner is served with panache at Tracy and Galton Blackiston’s Michelin-starred country house hotel near the north Norfolk coast. Galton, in tandem with Greg Anderson, runs the kitchen, while white-gloved waiting staff announce and serve such dishes as Scottish langoustine, peanut, lime - or Richard Vaughan’s middle white suckling pig. The tasting menu, served promptly at 8pm after canapes in conservatory or garden, changes daily.

The setting of this Cotswold manor is dreamy, surrounded as it is by acres of beautifully designed gardens. The food is equally impressive and chef Niall Keating has rightly earned a Michelin star for his modern British dishes such as tempura smoked eel, perilla (starter) or salmon, aloe vera, yeast beurre blanc (main). There are menus for carnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians and vegans, and the simpler fare on offer in the brasserie is prepared with the same care and attention to detail.

The North Yorkshire Moors provide a wonderful larder for Andrew Pern’s Michelin-starred kitchen at this thatched inn in a popular village. Much of the produce is either home grown, reared, caught, shot or foraged nearby. There are dining options for all tastes and budgets, from the good value locals’ set menu, to a la carte and a tasting menu with matched wines. Dishes from the last might include dressed white Whitby crab ‘stick’ with house-pickled cockles, shoreline vegetables, devilled crab, Charentais melon and ice wine sorbet.

Here is another starry new chef to look out for. Earlier in the year Douglas Balish, with a Michelin star under his belt, joined this charming hotel, determined to make the most of the larder of local produce from the surrounding area and the hotel’s kitchen garden. Fine dining in the Fernery restaurant includes such dishes as lamb, goat’s curd, morel, wild garlic, or, for vegetarians, duck egg, quinoa, wild garlic, celeriac. You can eat a la carte, or from a six- or eight-course tasting menu - or opt for more informal dining in the Artisan Rooms.

Owners Jane and Ian McAndrew have made this former manse on the banks of the River Nith a warm and welcoming place of pilgrimage for food lovers. Ian uses the best Scottish produce in his gourmet tasting menu or fine dining menu; a trio of pork from the latter comprises slow braised then roast belly, parma ham wrapped fillet, pork and black pudding bon bon, onion marmalade, burnt onion roast grelot and millefeuille potato. Both menus change daily to make the most of seasonal fare.

Everything that grows in the garden of this former coaching inn is edible, an indication of owners James and Kate Mackenzie’s commitment to locally sourced food. Despite their Michelin star, there is no fuss or pretension here, it’s an inclusive place with reasonable prices. James’ signature dishes might include Roast salt aged Leven duck breast, confit duck leg boulangere potato, crispy duck hearts, celeriac puree, pickled blackberries, parkin crumb.

This Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms is a family operation. James Sommerin heads up the kitchen, where staff include his daughter Georgia, while his wife Louise is in charge of front-of-house. As you look out through the restaurant windows across the Severn estuary you can dine on beautifully prepared local produce - perhaps Welsh lamb, coconut, butternut squash, cumin, mint. At weekends it’s a six-or nine-course tasting menu only.