Ballymaloe House

‘We enjoyed a walk in the extensive grounds with the hotel’s biodiversity champion,’ write readers on a visit to this legendary Irish country house hotel that is passionate about locally sourced food. In the 59 years since the late Myrtle Allen opened the Yeats Room restaurant in the family’s Georgian farmhouse, the modest enterprise has grown into a thriving business, with cookery school, café and arts venue. True to the founding principles, head chef Dervilla O’Flynn devises dishes around produce from the farm and walled kitchen garden or locally sourced. For instance, rack and leg of lamb with coriander, lemon and 
crushed swede; cauliflower with squash and spinach 
korma, turmeric rice, coconut dahl dumplings and raita. Refurbished bedrooms are charmingly, traditionally styled. ‘We had a well-equipped and spacious courtyard room with its own conservatory,’ continue our readers, who were also shown the cellars by the sommelier. Breakfast is all that it should be, with home-baked breads, organic, unpasteurised butter, jam from garden fruit, Ballymaloe free-range eggs, labneh with local honey and pistachios. (Tony and Shirley Hall)