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Housed in an historic inn that dates back to 1420, The Angel Hotel on the Marketplace in Lavenham boasts beautifully maintained interiors with beamed ceilings and wood paneling. The exterior is equally striking with many original Tudor features still clearly visible, while sympathetic restoration in the 1950s secured the medieval gable ends and brick chimneys. Converted into a hotel in the 1990s, the Angel is the perfect spot for a leisurely dinner after a day of sight-seeing or could make the ideal base for a longer stay in this beautiful Suffolk town.

Taken over by the renowned Michelin star-winning chef, Marco Pierre White in 2011, the AA Rossette awarded inn's à la carte showcases freshly prepared food created with local ingredients wherever possible and includes a range of mouth watering steaks, braised roasts, fish and seafood dishes and vegetarian options. Guests can relish starters of potted duck with prunes d'Agen served with toasted sourdough, finest quality smoked eel with Wheeler's potato and egg salad or cream of cauliflower soup with smoked salmon.

Follow with delicious mains of roast rump of lamb à la Dijonnaise with gratin dauphinoise and roasting juices; honey roast belly pork Marco Polo with butter beans or fine quality Scottish rib eye steak à la Boston with oysters and jus à la Parisienne. If you prefer fish, there's Wheeler's classic fish pie with buttered garden peas, smoked haddock with Welsh rarebit and tomato salad and grilled Dover sole à la salamander with sauce tartare and creamed potatoes. Set menus are also available for lunch and dinner.

Traditional Sunday specials include roast rib of Aberdeen Angus with Yorkshire pudding, creamed horseradish and traditional gravy; roast chicken with all the trimmings, stuffing, bread sauce, chipolatas and roasting juices; and roast suckling pig with stuffing, apple sauce and gravy.

To finish, consider Cambridge burnt cream with English raspberries, King's fruit cake with Colston Bassett Stilton or Mr White's rice pudding with prunes d'Agen á l'Armagnac.

The bar offers locally brewed ales such as Adnams, Greenking and Nethergate, over 40 carefully selected wines, 25 malt whiskies and a variety of liqueurs.

To gain further information, just visit their extremely comprehensive Website.

There is about the East Anglian countryside an air of antiquity quite unlike anywhere else you have encountered in Britain. It is at its strongest in places like Lavenham where a combination of ancient buildings, warm dry summers and the red brick and half timbering peculiar to counties like Suffolk are at their best.

It is no surprise therefore that the Great House at Lavenham should fit in so well to this idyllic background. Lavenham has to be high on the list of most attractive villages in England, the sort of place where people who may be weary of their everyday locations come for some well-earned rejuvenation.

Described by The Mail on Sunday as 'a gem of a small country hotel-restaurant with an authentic taste of France', The Great House has five luxurious accommodations, with no expense spared to ensure the sort of setting where, as you walk into your room you know instinctively that this is your personal paradise, yours for as long as you can stay.

Eating well is every bit as important to the process as resting well, and when The Sunday Telegraph said, 'The Great House is a cracking restaurant' it was not referring to the foundations, which incidentally are in fine shape. There are several menus, of which the à la carte is but one example, and whilst the overall influence is French, ingredients tend to follow regional sourcing with an emphasis on freshness. Great House Hotel & Restaurant is rated as one of 'Britain's top 100 Restaurants' by the Sunday Times.

Starters could include duck foie gras, French 'les landes' foie gras ballotine marinated with Armagnac and Port and grilled brioche, or tuna and mackerel sushi, marinated red tuna with olive oil, lemon juice, sesame seeds and rice vinegar mackerel fillet.

First courses of this kind of integrity create the sort of confidence that enables a meal to be enjoyed to the full and main courses of roasted duck breast with wild morel mushroom sauce, or farmed halibut, grilled with spinach and coriander salsa, white wine and passion fruit sauce, do nothing to diminish this sense of well-being. Dinner brings perhaps a shrimp cocktail with cucumber, coriander, fresh chilli horseradish cream and tomato sorbet followed by cheek of beef slowly cooked in red wine Le Puy lentils and bacon.

It is within the dessert menu at The Great House that opportunities exist for the most outrageous indulgence. Who, in their right gastronomic mind, would be able to keep calm as they dallied between the relative merits of a dark and milk chocolate ganache with runny salted caramel heart and crispy 'Tuile' biscuit just so, or a crème brûlée, pistachio and raspberry with crispy top? Well, there are those who would head unerringly for the wonderful selection of perfectly kept French cheeses.

It would be strange if the wine list was anything but equal to the task of matching the cuisine, and not only is the selection everything you would expect and by no means confined to France alone, it is also amazingly good value for money. There is a magnificent range of half bottles, excellent house wine and champagne by the glass, with ports, cognacs, armagnacs and liqueurs enough to ensure a very happy landing.

If I display inclinations towards what some might see as a rave review, it is simply because a lot of people get parts of it right part of the time - few achieve the full monty. Be assured that The Great House at Lavenham is most definitely one of them. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise therefore that the Good Food Guide made them East of England Restaurant of the Year 2009, whilst the Good Hotel Guide for 2009 made them Restaurant with Rooms of the Year. They have also been awarded two Rosettes by the AA Guide.

Their Website informs well about the hotel and restaurant and has a number of useful links to enhance your enjoyment on a wider scale.

With three AA Rosettes and an award winning chef it is clear that The Bildeston Crown is a place where the food is taken very seriously indeed.

Located in a recently refurbished Grade II listed former coaching inn, this home from home has twelve ensuite bedrooms, two private dining rooms, an eighty-seat restaurant, and two bars, giving visitors a range of exciting options.

Chef Chris Lee uses quality produce, sourced locally whenever possible and with much from the owners' farm, to create a range of regularly changing dishes. The Crown Classics menu features favourites such as haggis, neeps and tatties; and char-grilled rib of Suffolk beef, while an eight-course Crown tasting menu offers an enjoyable dining experience with a balanced progression of flavours.

The Crown Select menu is a little more adventurous and demonstrates the chef's skill in choices such as poached and honey-roasted breast of quail, 'head to toe' of Nedging pork with apple puree and sauce gribiche, and poached fillet of lemon sole.

An abundant selection of wines complements the dishes perfectly.

The Gallery Restaurant is found in the picturesque Suffolk village of Lavenham, at The Swan Hotel. Well-known for its fine food and wine, there are plenty of dining options available here, from the informal brasserie and the historic Airmen's Bar to dining al fresco in the garden, or in the elegant AA two Rosette Gallery Restaurant.

Head Chef, Justin Kett is known for his love of classical British food which comes through in his exciting seasonal menus, which are strongly based on quality ingredients. These include freshly baked bread using flour from Glebe Farm, Lowestoft kippers and Cromer crab. Other fine ingredients include the Nash family's chickens from Sutton Hoo, Blythburgh pork, Red Poll beef and asparagus from Sanderson's Farm at Beachamwell, Suffolk Gold cheeses from Salisbury's Guernsey herd in Coddenham and Mrs Temples Binham Blue and Norfolk Smoked Dapple.

People travel from afar to enjoy afternoon tea in the restaurant's charming hidden gardens, and The Gallery boasts an excellent selection of wines and local ales.