‘The drama of dinner is played out in fine style’ at Tracy and Galton Blackiston’s ‘gorgeous’ restaurant-with-rooms in a coastal village. The house, dating in parts from 1640, shows its venerable age in the beams in bedrooms, each named after a local stately home. Characterful Mannington is under the eaves. Blickling (Anne Boleyn’s birthplace) has a ‘great’ bathroom with roll-top bath and walk-in shower. Rooms in the garden pavilion have a seating area with a coal-effect fire, a private terrace – Lavender’s seating area is scented by the real thing. The staff are ‘warm, friendly and enthusiastic’, wrote a reader who rates the place ‘top of my list’ among Michelin-starred restaurants. Cooked in tandem with Greg Anderson, Mr Blackiston’s daily-changing, seven-course menus – including such dishes as wild Stiffkey sea bass, whey butter sauce, or Richard Vaughan’s Middle White suckling pig – are theatrically presented in conservatory dining rooms: ‘The young waiters (all wearing gloves) have to explain each serving.’ Breakfast brings freshly squeezed orange juice, locally pressed apple juice, locally smoked haddock, home-smoked salmon. Seal-spotting boat trips depart from close by. (JB)