Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

The restaurant within The Russell Court Hotel in Bournemouth delivers a menu of traditional British dishes with international influences. With an emphasis on using fresh ingredients, sourced locally wherever possible, the restaurant is equally popular with hotel guests, local diners and holidaymakers. Close to many of the local attractions and beaches, the restaurant is the perfect location for a quick lunch or a more leisurely evening meal and diners can enjoy a drink in the hotel bar before or after their meal.

The restaurant is open for breakfast everyday and offers a range of dishes from lighter continental pastries to a hearty full English breakfast with tea, coffee and fruit juices. The all-day menu also includes a range of sandwiches, while the lunch and dinner menus are more formal and include a range vegetarian, meat and seafood dishes.

The hotel also offers a number of fixed price meal deals and a Sunday lunch menu that serves a traditional roast dinner with all the trimmings.

Alex and Nicky Ford took over this traditional village pub in Puddletown in June 2008. Keeping the very best of the old, they set about combining its warm, friendly country ambience with a cool, airy modern interior - part of a style that is reflected in their approach to the food and hospitality for which the Blue Vinny is rapidly gaining a reputation. The menu is truly international and combines influences from the Mediterranean, modern British and mainland Europe.

Caramelized red onion and Blue Vinny tart served with baby leaf salad and a balsamic reduction and seared Lyme Bay scallops with a spicy coriander and tomato salsa set the stage for your meal. Confit of Large Black belly pork with black pudding, Bramley apple rösti and a scrumpy jack scented jus could follow, with vanilla pannacotta with raspberry coulis to round off the experience. The Dorset cheese, Blue Vinny, is a way of life round here - be sure to sample some.

The wines have been chosen to march with the menu, and there is always a range of excellent guest ales on tap.

Located in a quiet piece of a quiet county 'The Brace' satisfies the desires of those whose idea of a cosy pub with restaurant in deep English countryside, an old thatchedbuilding with log fires, oak beams and a minimum of formality. In fact it has it all, including an entry in the Michelin Guide.

Start with roast mushroom in vine leaves with a shaved fennel salad and grated goat's cheese, or spicy Portland crab cakes with sherry mayonnaise on a mixed leaf salad, followed by grilled spatchcock of poussin with a herb crust, served on an orange and watercress salad, or pan fried pheasant breasts with a caramelised orange and whisky sauce served with Dauphinoise potatoes.

Finish with one of their delicious homemade puddings. This is England how it used to be.

Keep it simple and unpretentious and you will not go far wrong. Yes, it works every time, though in truth the surroundings of this luscious 17th-century thatched inn in deepest Dorset would be hard to beat. You eat in the bar or the dining room; choosing from a blackboard of about 20 daily specials, many of them seafood-inspired. A good wine list offers excellent choices within brevity, starting at £10.50 and five house selections from £1.95 a glass.

Named after the legendary writer Oscar Wilde. Oscars is a relaxed yet formal dining restaurant. The service is very professional yet not intrusive, which is a refreshing change from some of London's finer eateries. The Edwardian décor carries on the spirit of the hotel and you can imagine Oscar Wilde ruminating over the tomes in this former library.