The Whitebrook

It would be easy to miss Chris and Kirsty Harrod’s Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms, tucked away above a single-track road in a Wye valley hamlet – but miss it and you’d miss out. Chris worked for Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Great Milton (see entry), ‘but this is an experience of a different kind’. As well as sourcing produce as locally as possible, Chris forages for herbs and plants from pennywort to hogweed, and incorporates them in his dishes. They might include squab pigeon, cauliflower, forced rhubarb, charred kale and wild chervil, or Crown Prince pumpkin, buttermilk, purple sprouting broccoli and three-cornered garlic. The rooms are ‘functional rather than overtly luxurious’, painted in pale shades, with a modern bathroom, a double-ended bath and walk-in shower as well as organic toiletries. One, with views of the valley and eponymous brook, has a sleigh bed; another, overlooking the garden, has a stone wet room. Welsh cake and fresh milk offered on arrival are nice touches; the tea is from Cornwall. But the food is the big attraction. ‘This man must be in line for two stars.’