Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

The great thing about refurbishments is, of course, to ensure that at least some of the antiquity is left, not scattered about but centred in one place. Here, as often happens, the bar has emerged triumphant, which is not to be critical of the changes elsewhere. When that same bar offers Green King IPA and Abbot Ales, well-kept at that, there really is no contest.

Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner are all available, with an emphasis on the evenings when customers settle down to some determined enjoyment from a menu that nicely embraces old and new. Starters of devilled lamb kidneys and mushroom on toast, or salt and pepper squid with spring onion and chilli salad make a suitable background for suckling pig with roast pumpkin and apple mash, Cornish skate wing with caper butter and chips, or a confit of duck with red cabbage and bubble and squeak.

Follow with sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream, or a pineapple carpaccio with pomegranate and passionfruit sorbet. A lively wine list enhances the experience.

Set in the thick of Woodcote's scenic surroundings just 30 minutes away from Oxford and Henley-on-Thames, is a charming little rustic delight of a restaurant called Woody Nook deriving its name from the owner's popular vineyard in the Margaret River region. Bordered by ivy and colourful seasonal flowers, this country restaurant with its low ceilings and wooden beams offers a cosy dining atmosphere, far away from the hustle-bustle of the city. Whether dining alone with only Blake and Coleridge for company or out on a romantic getaway, Woody Nook will surely not disappoint.

The theme is international cuisine with an Australian flair and Chef Stuart Shepherd does complete justice with his delicious innovations. Sample the deep fried chilli tempura squid with rocket salad, the fillet of Scottish beef, flat mushroom and grilled tomato or the pan fried Atlantic cod with shellfish cream sauce. Make sure you don't miss out on the wines - the wine boutique has won more than 170 awards in the last decade. For dessert, the sticky toffee pudding and Bailey's cheesecake offer close competition. Worth a visit!

A delightful restaurant. The sort of place you hope to find when you have time on your hands and nothing much else in mind. In a unique position at the end of a little winding lane on the banks of the River Thames at Goring, overlooking water meadows and the Berkshire Downs.

Somehow, you expect three men from a boat to be winding their way across the lawn to join you in the restaurant. The Leatherne Bottle continue to attract customers from far and wide, who lunch on the terrace in summer amidst the scent of wild herbs and flowers. In winter logs blaze in two large open fire-places.

Julia Storey has been head chef here for ten years, and is rightly very proud of the Most Excellent Restaurant in the U.K. 2006 award from Conde Nast Johansens.

Her Modern European menu has an exciting Pacific Rim touch, with mouth-watering combinations such as fresh crab and spinach salad with coconut shavings and vanilla bean oil; smoked lamb tenderloin, pea purée, sage butter; roast saddle of venison, braised red cabbage with juniper, fondant potato. Everything at the Leatherne Bottel is homemade, including breads and a stunning selection of puddings.