Lake Isle

There is neither lake nor isle at Richard and Janine Burton’s listed 18th-century whitewashed restaurant-with-rooms, behind a shopfront in the oldest part of town. It had been a draper’s, barber’s and baker’s before being opened as a restaurant in the 1970s by people who clearly had a feeling for Yeats. Bedrooms are a mix of the traditional and the contemporary, with bold wallpaper but with a muted palette. Larger ones have a spa bath; there are two cottages for a family within the courtyard. All are reasonably priced and supplied with home-baked biscuits, though they may be on the cosy side. No matter, say readers, because the reason you go is ‘definitely for the food’. Stuart Mead’s locally sourced dishes might include monkfish, beef fillet with triple-cooked chips, breast of chicken with a mini-chicken-and-mushroom pie and veg, black bean balti. ‘Our meal was excellent, well cooked and efficiently served.’ A ‘wide and appealing choice’ at breakfast includes fresh orange juice, just-baked croissants, salmon and smoked haddock fishcakes, kipper, cheese omelette and the full English. (J and EG, and others)