The food is the main course at Janine and Richard Burton’s restaurant-with-rooms. ‘How I wish we had a restaurant anywhere near as good as this where I live now,’ writes a visitor this year, after returning to her old Rutland haunt. The 17th-century property, a former shop on the high street of the public school market town, is where chef Stuart Mead creates locally sourced, regularly changing seasonal menus, variously lauded as ‘superb’, ‘very good’ and ‘cooked to perfection’. A typical dish: cod supreme, Cheddar and mustard seed rarebit, pulled gammon, parsley creamed potato, roasted carrots and leeks, ham crisps. ‘To die for’ puddings include chocolate and stem ginger délice, burnt honey ice cream, orange-whisky curd. The ‘smallish’ bedrooms add contemporary flesh to the Grade II listed bones, some with a whirlpool bath, all with tea/coffee-making facilities, home-made biscuits. ‘Ours wasn’t large but perfectly adequate, the bed extremely comfortable.’ Others found their cottage suite bedroom ‘very tight’. The ‘brilliant’ breakfast includes freshly squeezed juices, home-made muesli, grilled salmon and haddock fishcakes – a solid foundation for exploring nearby Rutland Water. (John Bennett, CH)