It may be in the Debatable Lands, just south of the border, but there is no debate about Chris Archer’s Michelin-starred cooking at Gerald and Margo Smith’s restaurant with rooms. And if those rooms at this former coaching inn are named after border riever clans famous for raiding and marauding, don’t lose sleep; a peaceful night is assured. Rated by size, all are ‘tasteful and modern’, with coffee machine and treats from the kitchen. Three, in a barn annexe, are dog friendly. Trusted readers received a warm welcome and were shown to a compact room, ‘a little cramped’, with 6ft bed, a ‘roomy bathroom with bath and walk-in shower’ (five have shower only). The night’s tasting menu, using produce from the walled garden at the Smiths’ nearby Netherby Hall, included scallop, girolles, pea, coconut; Cumbrian shorthorn, mushroom croquette, neeps and tatties; cheesecake, raspberry, white chocolate – ‘all beautifully cooked and presented’. The sommelier ‘spent a long time with us chatting about the wines… we had a most enjoyable evening...So they achieved the impossible. No problems, everything running smoothly.’ And at breakfast, in the scrambled egg stakes, ‘Pentonbridge are clear front runners'. (Bill Wood)