‘Food-focused readers will be happy’ at this red brick Chilterns restaurant-with-rooms that offers a ‘distinctive cooking style’. Owner Nick Mash, from a local family of farmers and greengrocers, has reinvented an old Georgian village inn. While the entrance and bar ‘retain a timeless feel’, the ‘bright’ dining room beyond partially opens on to a kitchen with wood-fired grill. Chef Jon Parry ‘forages the woods, selects fresh produce from the garden, and draws from the family farm’ to fuel seasonal menus with dishes such as lamb loin and sprouting broccoli; tranche of halibut and turmeric roast cauliflower. To go with dinner there is ‘splendid bespoke ash and oak furniture’, and garden doors, open in summer, providing bucolic views. ‘We sat for a long time enjoying the silence,’ write inspectors, ‘watching the chef harvest vegetables from the raised beds.’ Bedrooms have ‘clean, modern decor’, with grey and blue hues, bleached woods, king-size beds, a Roberts radio and Anglepoise lights. A simple approach – ‘they say it is a place to lay your head after a good meal’ – also taken with the ‘fine breakfast’, delivered on a tray to the room.