A former 18th-century shooting lodge swathed in Virginia creeper, this Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms, with ‘friendly service’, enjoys an ‘unsurpassed’ location in the rolling Yorkshire Dales. The prestigious star was won by the then owner Frances Atkins in 2003. She sold up in 2018 but (much to everyone’s relief) she remains in the kitchen, conjuring up ‘wonderful’ flavour-intense food that lures diners from far and wide (sometimes by helicopter). Serious foodies plump for the tasting menu: highlights include crab and langoustine, tomato, nasturtium root, aubergine custard or Laudale venison, bilberry, Douglas fir pine. A short à la carte menu is offered in the Little Dining Room, and might include Whitby crab and smoked salmon, Nidderdale sirloin of beef or grilled turbot. Bedrooms, in the main building or in the courtyard, are ‘comfortable’ and well appointed, decorated in country-chic style with a touch of locational whimsy: the ‘On Yer Bike’ wallpaper in the eponymously named suite, for example, is a nod to the area’s own Tour de Nidderdale. Less ambitious cyclists can simply enjoy the great cycling country that surrounds the restaurant. (D and LH, and others)