With a Michelin Bib Gourmand awarded every year since 2003 and a 'most liked' listing in the Michelin Pub Guide 2011, the Red Lion Inn continues to thrive attracting a wide audience of both locals and folk from the neighbouring towns and cities into the beautiful Vale of Belvoir. Part of the Rutland Inn Company, The Red Lion Inn is sister pub to the Michelin-starred Olive Branch in Rutland, and the décor recreates the warm and welcoming atmosphere expected at a traditional British inn. It may or may not be true that the death warrant for King Charles I was signed at the inn, but the place certainly has the smack of history about it.

On the culinary front look for well-tried dishes such as potted prawns and lamb faggots Grasmere farm black pudding and braised red cabbage, and Red Lion chocolate tart with pistachio ice cream. The emphasis is on local produce: sausages from the village butcher, game from the Belvoir Castle, dairy, beef, lamb and pork from local farms and all served with a warm Rearsby loaf at the table.

For cheese buffs there are local cheeses with Natural Goat Log from Skylark Hill, Red Leicester from Thomas Hoe, and Stilton cheese from the Cropwell Bishop dairy. The menu also offers pub foods with deep-fried whitebait, black pepper and lemon mayonnaise, a Red Lion pub platter, fish and chips with homemade mushy peas, and to show even more local loyalty, a Dickinson and Morris pork pie with Cropwell Bishop Stilton Ploughman's, ham hock terrine, piccalilli and sourdough bread . At lunchtime a two or three course meal might yield wild mushroom and tarragon soup, pan fried sea bream, parmentier potatoes and spinach finishing with chocolate brownie and white chocolate sauce.

A typical dinner menu could start with a warm salad of pigeon breast with puy lentil and rocket or beetroot cured salmon gravadlax in horseradish cream. Main courses span a wide range of attractive dishes including slow cooked beef brisket, rösti potato along with farmhouse cabbage, Red Lion Longhorn 8oz rib eye steak with homemade chips, onion rings, garlic mushrooms, grilled tomato and béarnaise sauce, or pan-fried salmon with horseradish rösti and French peas. In season watch out for a choice of game such as roast partridge from Belvoir Castle with farmhouse cabbage, pear and bread sauce.

For desserts, rhubarb jelly with ginger ice cream come to partner a custard doughnut assuming you have not already yielded to the Rearsby treacle tart with blackberry compote. A veritable Aladdin's cave of interesting and very well priced wines are more than likely to tickle the noses of even the most hardened wine buffs, and their listing under their natures rather than the more traditional headings makes for quick identification.

They take reservations for the dining room but also have a lounge area with a dining table in it which they save for 'chance customers'. The bar not only offers well kept local ales but also a superb selection of speciality bottled beers and ciders, and their own country cocktail created using ingredients found in the surrounding areas, all more than equal to the challenges imposed by an imaginative menu.

With friendly, knowledgeable and informative staff and a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere, it is no wonder that it was an almost instant success and continues to be so.

More information is available on their Website, including menus and details of their wines and ales.