Restaurant at The Lasswade Country House Hotel, The

Lasswade is a tall Edwardian house, handy for the station, commanding splendid views over the surrounding countryside with a keen family team going the extra mile to make your stay a comfortable and happy experience.

Of course there are no better ways of doing this than by attending to the inner man as a priority and Roger and Emma Stevens are past-masters at that. The pace is unhurried and the ingredients speak of the locality.

Look out of the window and chances are you will see where some of them came from. Organic food is highly prized at this restaurant and many of the suppliers are carefully cultivated by Roger, who encourages their careful husbandry and sympathy with organic policy in the soft lighting of the hotel's Regency dining room.

The daily changing menu is as likely to include Welsh Black beef or locally reared Welsh mountain lamb from one of several breeds. Vegetables will consist of a good proportion of locally grown organic varieties which lend themselves well to the Mediterranean tendencies of Roger's cooking.

A typical daily menu could read as locally smoked organic salmon with apple and horseradish cream, slow-roast shoulder of the new season?s mountain lamb on a bed of orange-scented butter beans, and sautéed hedgerow fruits doused in Welsh birch wine. Could anybody ask for anything much more redolent of the local flavours?

In January 2008 they became the first hotel restaurant in Wales to win the U.K. Considerate Hoteliers "Sustain Food Challenge (rural)", demonstrating Lasswade's commitment to using and promoting environmental management and sustainable food with organic, local, fresh food and fair trade products. In addition they have been in the both the Good Food Guide and held an AA Rosette from 2004 to 2008.

The wine list maintains the pace with house wine starting at £9.95. Lasswade belongs to a special sort of country house hotel, where the emphasis is on value and creating the sort of atmosphere which speaks of home with the essential difference that all the comfort is there to enjoy with absolutely none of the hassle of maintaining it. The food is certainly one of the highlights and really needs to be tasted to be fully understood and enjoyed.

For more information, and details about their bedrooms, do have a look at their Website.