Ballymaloe House

‘Still the same little earthly paradise.’ With ‘outstanding’ meals, ‘comforting’ log fires and ‘effortless, round-the-clock attentiveness’ from ‘helpful’ staff, this ‘timeless’ hotel provides an experience of ‘top-quality hospitality’. ‘It sets the bar high,’ say Guide inspectors in 2016. Myrtle Allen’s enterprise began as a modest restaurant in 1964; today it includes a cookery school, farm shop, music venue and much else. The founder, now in her 90s, is still a presence; daughter-in-law Hazel is manager. Pretty bedrooms vary in size and aspect. ‘Our spacious room overlooking the garden had a king-size bed with luxurious sheets and a good, supportive mattress; a modern bathroom.’ In the ‘welcoming’ restaurant, savour Jason Fahey’s cooking. ‘Beautifully cooked loin of venison came with pouring jugs of horseradish and redcurrant sauces; savoury lentils accompanied a flavoursome duck.’ Breakfast – ‘probably the best I have enjoyed’ – is a cheering event, with ‘molten scrambled eggs, tender bacon, subtly spiced black and white pudding’. (Helge Rubinstein, Richard Parish, and others)