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If you fancy eating and drinking in the place that is reputed to have served as William Shakespeare's off licence, The Vintner is for you. The fine timber-framed building has been little altered since it was built in the late-1400s and provides a handsome setting for the café bar, a restaurant and private dining in the Banquet Room.

Handy for the Royal Shakespeare Theatres and open seven days a week, the cuisine ranges from traditional English cooking through to pan European, and draws on fresh, local produce. Visitors and locals mingle cheerfully, assisted by a wine list that will take you on a challenging journey round the globe, all of which helps towards creating the high zing factor that rings around the ancient beams.

The Vintner has to be one of the busiest places in town. After some five hundred years, it's still privately owned. In 1600, John Smith traded here as a wine merchant and it's reputed that William Shakespeare came here to buy his wine. If the list which he was able to choose from then bears any resemblance to the one on offer to those who eat and drink there now, then Will certainly knew a thing or two!

The Vintner offers a modern café bar and a handsome restaurant. The Private Dining Room is an ideal setting for a wedding breakfast, a reunion, that special birthday party or a meeting of the Board perhaps?

Within this superb example of Victorian neo-Gothic at its most ingenious, set amidst lush middle-England countryside, is encapsulated a splendidly oak-panelled room with a rococo ceiling and expansive windows overlooking a 12th century church. This is the dining room of Ettington Park, formerly home of the Shirley family, now a hotel of breathtaking architectural opulence. The cuisine is traditional, rich and wonderfully self-indulgent. The ideal place for Sunday lunch when time matters not one jot. I ran residential courses here for some years and the memories are all good. House wine at £16.50, supported by a good well-travelled list.

Pizza Express remains a hugely popular bedrock of casual eating. Its popularity is testimony to the fact that across the country, they have restaurants where you will always be guaranteed a good nosh, with children's tastes being well catered for.

Pizza Express has gone even more Roman, and following the success of that particular example of listening to their public have introduced Romana pizzas, including the scorching Etna and the hearty Siciliana.

These pizzas are now thinner, bigger and crispier, and if that sounds like a marketing line, it is. However, unlike many such lines, this one is true, and their quality is always consistent, though cleverly they have still managed to retain a homemade feel to their pizzas.

As an alternative to pizza, try their pollo pesto - cavatappi pasta with torn chicken breast, mushrooms, red onions and mozzarella in a creamy gruyere, parmesan and pesto sauce and finished with grana padano - or the niçoise salad with mixed leaves, yellowfin tuna, free range egg, green beans, potatoes and tomatoes with olives, anchovies, capers and house dressing.

Many of the big chains have come a long way, and Pizza Express is certainly amongst them. One of the first to be quoted on the Stock Exchange - in 1993 - Pizza Express is not a franchise operation and retains tight control through its own staff.

Their wine list - though short - contains some surprisingly good offerings, especially their intense Australian Chardonnay, and a big, full-bodied Merlot from Cusumano, Sicilia.

Il Moro is a family run Sardinian restaurant offering pizza, pasta and traditional dishes, in a small cosy building tucked away from the main tourist route. Guests will be welcomed by the relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and get to unwind amidst family portraits, artifacts and home made pictures. Sardinian cuisine has unique Mediterranean flavours, a large part of which is owed to the layered culinary heritage of the island. All the food is prepared fresh and offers a delightful dining experience.

Start with soup of the day and garlic tiger prawns served with a spicy tomato sauce, and garlic pizza bread. For main course consider roasted grey mullet to share or roasted pork served with pesto and fennel. End this divine meal with tiramisu, light sponge soaked in coffee and amaretto liquor layered with mascarpone and zabaglione cream and cocoa powder, and fresh strawberries served with ice cream.