The Mash Inn

This village inn with its aged red brick and bucolic surrounds has been reinvented as a restaurant-with-rooms where the food is both ‘delicious and original’, cooked on a custom-made wood-fired grill in the open kitchen. There are still rustic features of an 18th-century pub – cosy beamed bar, creaking wooden floors, wood-burning stove – but they are clearly serious about food here. Owner Nick Mash and chef Jon Parry are passionate about ‘connecting people with nature’. The menu, including foraged and kitchen-garden produce, reflects the inn’s terroir. Dishes might include local lamb with purple sprouting broccoli and ewe’s curd, truffled chicken with wood-fired leeks and mushroom, and Cornish mackerel (landed 24 hours earlier) with horseradish. Natural and English wines feature on the drinks list, plus local ales and home-made infusions. Minimalist bedrooms in milky-whites and greys have pale-wood furniture, some with a roll-top bath in a jazzy-tiled bathroom. A simple breakfast, including granola, buttermilk yogurt and croissants with home-made jams, is best taken in bed with views over the Chiltern hills.