The Cotswolds has been pulling in visitors for centuries, and it’s not hard to see why. An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that stretches across six counties, it’s the kind of place where a wrong turn down a lane still leads somewhere worth going. Honey-coloured villages, good pubs, big skies, and a sense that someone’s been quietly looking after the place for a very long time. It’s a UK staycation that earns its reputation year after year.

Why, Just Why?

No wonder, then, that this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is regularly named as one of the UK’s most popular staycations. We could leave it there, really, as the introduction explains everything, but then we wouldn’t meet our word count. For that reason, and with all that in mind, here are some key reasons that the Cotswolds remains such an enduringly popular staycation destination.

The Quintessential English Countryside

The Cotswolds looks the way most people imagine England should look. Its hills fold into one another across miles of open country, the stone walls and church spires doing exactly what you’d hope they would against a grey or blue sky. That distinctive limestone, warm and pale, almost glowing in the right light, ties the whole region together, from grand manor houses to the smallest garden wall. It’s the kind of scenery that has drawn artists and writers for centuries, and it doesn’t take long here to understand why.

Insider Tip: The Secret Gardens of Hidcote

The whole region qualifies as an AONB, but Hidcote Manor Garden deserves a special mention. This National Trust property, created by the horticulturist Major Lawrence Johnston, is arranged as a series of outdoor ‘rooms’, each with its own character, walled off from the next. It’s one of the most influential garden designs of the 20th century, and it’s surprisingly under-visited.

A Vast Canvas of Natural Beauty

At nearly 800 square miles, the Cotswolds is big enough to absorb a lot of visitors without feeling overrun. It spans several counties, from Oxfordshire’s church spires through to the deeper valleys of Gloucestershire, and the character shifts as you move between them. Even on a bank holiday weekend, you can find a stretch of countryside that feels like it belongs entirely to you.

Discover the Unexplored: Minchinhampton Common

Minchinhampton Common is a good example. This wide-open common land sits high above the Stroud valleys, offering long views in every direction. Cattle roam freely across it, and on a weekday you’re likely to have the place more or less to yourself. Bring a picnic.

Embrace The Great Outdoors

If you like walking, you’ll struggle to find a better region for it. Miles of well-maintained footpaths cut through the countryside, from gentle loops around a village to full-day hikes along exposed ridgelines. The terrain is forgiving enough for beginners but varied enough to keep serious walkers interested.

Walk This Way: The Cotswold Way Circular Walks

If you’re not ready to commit to the full 102-mile Cotswold Way, try one of the Cotswold Way Circular Walks instead. These shorter loops take in some of the long-distance trail’s best stretches without requiring you to arrange transport at the other end.

The Heart of British Country Pub Culture

The Cotswolds has more good pubs per square mile than just about anywhere in England. Flagstone floors, low beams, a fire going from October through April, local ales on the hand pumps. It’s the kind of pub culture that people travel from overseas to experience, and it’s still going strong here.

Must-Visit: The Ebrington Arms

The Ebrington Arms, a short drive from Chipping Campden, is a proper Cotswold pub that also happens to operate as a microbrewery. The food is excellent, the setting is hard to beat, and their Yubby Bitter is worth crossing a county for.

A Taste of The Cotswolds

The food scene here goes well beyond pub grub. Artisan cheeses, heritage-breed meats, and seasonal produce from the surrounding farms feed a network of restaurants, farm shops, and weekly markets. Food festivals pop up through the warmer months, and the quality of ingredients at even the smaller producers is reliably high.

Culinary Delight: The Kingham Plough

In the village of Kingham, The Kingham Plough has built its menu around what’s available locally, with foraged ingredients making regular appearances. It’s earned a strong reputation in the area, and the cooking is more ambitious than the country-pub setting might suggest.

A Diverse Range of Accommodation

The Cotswolds covers the full spectrum, from converted barns and thatched holiday cottages through to boutique hotels and country-house estates. Whatever your budget, you can find somewhere that feels right for the trip.

Country House Comfort: Burleigh Court Cotswolds

For something with a bit more grandeur, Burleigh Court Cotswolds is a handsome 18th-century manor house set in three acres of grounds near Minchinhampton. It has the feel of a private country estate without the stuffiness, and its position above the Golden Valley means the views from the terrace alone justify the booking.

Alternatively, there are some seriously luxury holiday cottages in the Cotswolds, which give you a proper feel for rural life in this part of England.

Stay In Style: The Wild Rabbit

The Wild Rabbit in Kingham gets the balance right between rural character and contemporary comfort. The rooms are well-designed without being fussy, and its restaurant has been recognised by the Michelin Guide. Sustainability runs through the operation, too, which is increasingly the expectation rather than the exception in this part of the world.

A Year-Round Destination

The Cotswolds doesn’t shut down after summer. Autumn turns the beech woods bronze and copper, winter brings frost to the stone walls and empty footpaths, and spring fills the meadows before the crowds return. Each season changes the mood of the place considerably, and there’s a strong argument that the quieter months are the best time to visit.

Seasonal Secret: The Lavender Fields

If you are here in summer, though, make a point of visiting The Lavender Fields. Row after row of purple stretching across the hillside, with the scent carrying on the breeze. It’s the sort of thing that looks almost unreal in person. Photographers love it, but it’s worth the visit even without a camera.

History & Culture Beyond The Countryside

There’s more to the Cotswolds than scenery. The region has been continuously settled since Roman times, and the evidence is everywhere: in the churches, the market squares, the ancient trackways that became modern footpaths. Contemporary galleries and studios have also taken root in recent years, drawn by the same light and space that attracted the Arts and Crafts movement a century ago.

Hidden Gem: The Corinium Museum

In Cirencester, the Corinium Museum houses one of the best collections of Roman artefacts in the country. Most visitors to the Cotswolds walk straight past it, which is their loss. The mosaics alone are worth an hour of your time.

Sustainable Travel In The Cotswolds

The Cotswolds has become increasingly serious about sustainable tourism. Local businesses are moving towards eco-friendly practices, and the infrastructure for car-free exploration is better than you might expect.

Eco-Friendly Exploration: Electric Bike Tours

An electric bike is one of the best ways to see the region without a car. Several local companies offer e-bike rentals and guided tours, and the rolling terrain is ideally suited to it. The hills keep things interesting, but nothing is so steep that you’ll regret the decision.

The Cotswolds’ Celebratory Spirit

The Cotswolds has a festival calendar that ranges from the distinguished to the genuinely eccentric, and the locals take both ends of that spectrum equally seriously.

Embrace Local Traditions: Cotswolds Festivals

The Cotswold Olimpicks in Chipping Campden features shin-kicking as a competitive sport, which tells you something about the region’s sense of humour. Then there’s the Cheese-Rolling at Cooper’s Hill, where competitors throw themselves down a near-vertical slope in pursuit of a wheel of Double Gloucester. It’s as dangerous and absurd as it sounds, and it draws thousands of spectators every year.

If your visit coincides with the annual Cotswold Olimpicks, it’s well worth an evening. The games have been running in some form since the early 17th century, and the atmosphere on the hill above Chipping Campden is unlike anything else in English country life.

At the more refined end of the scale, The Cheltenham Literature Festival is one of the oldest literary festivals in the world and draws major names every autumn. Longborough Festival Opera offers world-class performances in a small, rural setting that makes the big city venues feel impersonal by comparison. And throughout the year, food and drink festivals make the most of the region’s producers and the short distances between them.

The Bottom Line

The Cotswolds doesn’t need to try very hard. A good walk, a decent pub lunch, an afternoon spent wandering a village you’ve never heard of. These are small things, but they’re done exceptionally well here. It’s been a popular destination for a long time because the fundamentals are strong, and because the place itself hasn’t been loved to death the way some corners of England have.

Go in any season, stay as long as you can, and don’t over-plan it. The Cotswolds tends to reward the aimless.If you’re after a countryside break with good food at the centre of it, our round-up of the best gastropubs in Wiltshire should keep you busy on the drive home.

London’s South Bank is one of those stretches of the city that never gets old. Bookended by Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars, this pedestrianised ribbon of concrete and culture hugs the Thames like a favourite scarf, offering everything from Brutalist architecture to second-hand paperbacks, street food to skateboarding.

It wasn’t always this way. For centuries, the area was known as Lambeth Marsh, a waterlogged stretch of land that flooded with the tides. Drained in the 18th century, it became an industrial zone of tanneries, breweries, and factories.

The transformation came in 1951, when the Festival of Britain reimagined this bombed-out, run-down patch as a showcase for post-war optimism. The Royal Festival Hall is the lasting legacy of that moment, and the regeneration has continued ever since, with the Southbank Centre, National Theatre, and Tate Modern turning the riverbank into one of Europe’s great cultural districts.

With Waterloo Station spitting out commuters and day-trippers mere minutes from the action, it’s about as accessible as London gets. Here are ten ways to spend a brilliant day on this beloved stretch of riverbank.

Browse The South Bank Book Market

The South Bank Book Market has been drawing bibliophiles to its spot beneath Waterloo Bridge since 1983. Originally dreamt up by Leslie Hardcastle, then controller of the BFI, the market was conceived to liven up what was then a rather bleak patch of concrete.

Four decades later, it’s one of southern England’s only outdoor second-hand book markets, and its loyal stallholders have become as much a fixture as the brutalist architecture overhead. Expect everything from battered Penguins and vintage maps to antiquarian curiosities across eight permanent stalls. The traders know their stock inside out and are happy to chat.

Open daily from 10am to 7pm, though not all stalls operate every day and the market may close in bad weather, so weekends are your best bet for the full selection.

Catch A Film At BFI Southbank

BFI Southbank is a film lover’s paradise, nestled in the arches beneath Waterloo Bridge. This isn’t your multiplex experience: across four screens, the programming ranges from arthouse premieres and archive oddities to director Q&As and thematic retrospectives.

The flagship NFT1 screen, with its 450 seats and 9.2-metre screen, has been called one of the crown jewels of London cinema by Forbes. Even if you’re not catching a film, the BFI Reuben Library offers free access to an astonishing collection of film literature, while the Mediatheque lets you dive into the BFI National Archive.

The building is open daily from 11am to 11pm (11.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays), and the Riverfront Bar & Kitchen makes a fine spot for a post-screening debrief, with views across to the Book Market and the Thames beyond.

Explore Leake Street Arches

Leake Street Arches is a 300-metre tunnel running beneath Waterloo Station, and London’s longest legal graffiti wall. Every inch of surface is covered in constantly evolving street art, from elaborate murals to quick tags that might last hours before someone sprays over them. Banksy put the spot on the map with his 2008 Cans Festival, and the tunnel has hummed with creative energy ever since.

But it’s not just about the walls: the arches now house a cluster of independent bars and restaurants. Mamuśka serves hearty Polish classics (pierogi, bigos, vodka boards), Draughts is a board game café with over 1,000 games on its shelves, and Passyunk Avenue channels the dive-bar energy of Philadelphia with cheesesteaks, buffalo wings, and ice-cold American beer.

The tunnel itself is open 24 hours; individual venue hours vary.

Watch The Skaters At The Undercroft

The Undercroft beneath the Southbank Centre has been home to skateboarders since 1973, making it the world’s longest continually used skate spot. What started as a happy accident (the architects simply left the space open when they built the Queen Elizabeth Hall) became the beating heart of British skateboard culture.

The spot was threatened with redevelopment in 2013, but a spirited campaign by Long Live Southbank saved it, and subsequent renovations have expanded the skateable area back towards its original footprint.

Even if you’ve never stood on a board, it’s mesmerising to watch riders navigate the banks, ledges, and staircases. On any given afternoon you’ll find everyone from wobbly beginners to visiting pros, all sharing the same stretch of concrete.

Eat & Drink At The National Theatre

The National Theatre is justly famous for its productions, but it’s also become a serious food and drink destination in its own right. The headline act is Forza Wine, the terrace bar that Time Out named London’s best rooftop bar for 2025.

Perched above the Lyttelton Lounge with views across the river, it serves sharing plates of “Italian-ish” food (the cauliflower fritti is legendary) alongside a smartly curated list of natural wines. Open daily from midday to midnight.

For something more substantial, Lasdun offers modern British brasserie cooking from the team behind Hackney’s celebrated Marksman pub: think whole Cornish pollack and chicken and girolle pie. Even if you’re just passing through, the Atrium Café does excellent coffee and light lunches, and the building’s brutalist foyers are worth a wander in their own right.

Read: The best restaurants near London Waterloo

Visit The Hayward Gallery

The Hayward Gallery, with its distinctive brutalist exterior, has been showcasing major contemporary art exhibitions since 1968. The gallery’s raw concrete spaces suit bold, large-scale work particularly well.

From 17 February to 3 May 2026, the gallery hosts a double bill of immersive installations: Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s Threads of Life, featuring her signature floor-to-ceiling woven structures, alongside Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen’s Heart to Heart. Come summer, Anish Kapoor takes over from 16 June to 18 October.

Even when you’re not heading inside, the gallery’s outdoor sculpture terraces are free to explore and offer some of the best elevated views along this stretch of the river. Standard tickets are £19; Southbank Centre members go free.

Graze The Street Food Markets

The South Bank has become one of London’s best spots for outdoor eating, with two street food markets within a few minutes’ walk of each other. The Southbank Centre Food Market sets up every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on Southbank Centre Square, tucked behind the Royal Festival Hall on the Belvedere Road side. Around 40 stalls offer a world tour of cuisines: Ethiopian injera platters, Punjabi biryanis, Venezuelan arepas, and New Orleans po’boys all within a few metres of each other. Horn OK Please does some of London’s best dosas, and four new stalls rotate in each month.

In summer, KERB sets up its own open-air market outside the National Theatre, with a rotating lineup of street food trucks and a 70-metre communal table overlooking the river. The vibe is more curated than the Southbank Centre market, with traders like El Pollote (Venezuelan fried chicken) and Harissa and Lemon (Moroccan street food) alongside craft beers from Gipsy Hill and cocktails from a pop-up bar. Grab your haul and head to Jubilee Gardens for a riverside picnic with views of the London Eye.

Come winter, the Southbank Centre Winter Market takes over, with Alpine-style wooden chalets stretching along the riverfront from November through early January. Mulled wine, Dutch pancakes, raclette, and churros fuel the browsing, while craft stalls sell handmade jewellery and seasonal gifts. It’s free to wander, and the fairy lights reflecting off the Thames make for one of London’s more atmospheric festive experiences.

Walk The Queen’s Walk

Sometimes the best thing to do is simply wander. The Queen’s Walk stretches along the riverbank, offering a constantly shifting parade of views: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament to the west, St Paul’s Cathedral and the City’s glass towers to the east.

Street performers set up along the route, buskers fill the air with music, and the benches offer prime people-watching territory.

Grab a coffee for the stroll from Beany Green, a colourful shipping container tucked beneath Hungerford Bridge. Part of the Australian-inspired Daisy Green group, it serves excellent flat whites from its house-roasted Beany Blend, plus house-made banana bread that’s developed something of a cult following. In the evenings, the coffee gives way to craft beers and cocktails.

Walking east, stop off at the OXO Tower for a drink with a view. The eighth-floor bar sits at the top of the Art Deco landmark (the one with the cleverly disguised OXO lettering that got around a ban on riverside advertising), with floor-to-ceiling windows and an outdoor terrace looking across to St Paul’s. Cocktails aren’t cheap, but the setting is hard to beat.

Keep going and you’ll reach Tate Modern, the converted power station that helped kickstart the South Bank’s transformation when it opened in 2000. Entry to the permanent collection is free, and the cavernous Turbine Hall hosts large-scale installations that are worth seeing even if contemporary art isn’t usually your thing. The viewing platform on Level 10 offers panoramic views across the river to St Paul’s.

A stay in a Waterloo aparthotel puts you in the perfect location to return to this walk at different times of day, catching the morning joggers or the golden hour light over the water.

Have A Drink With A View

The South Bank is blessed with drinking spots that make the most of its riverside location. The BFI Riverfront is reliably good for a post-film pint with views across to the book stalls. Skylon, on Level 3 of the Royal Festival Hall, offers floor-to-ceiling windows and cocktails with a side of skyline.

For something less formal, The Understudy at the National Theatre pours local craft beers from Gipsy Hill and spirits from East London Liquor Company, with street food from a rotating cast of KERB traders. Open daily from midday.

In summer, the Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden is the move: a hidden green oasis above the Brutalist concrete, with deckchairs, cocktails, and views across the river. Time it right and you can sip something cold before heading downstairs to catch a show.

See A Production

The Queen Elizabeth Hall opened in 1967 with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten, and its nearly 1,000-seat auditorium has welcomed an eclectic roster ever since. The programming veers from classical and contemporary music to dance, theatre, and spoken word. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has performed here; so has JK Rowling.

The hall reopened in 2018 after a three-year renovation that stripped things back to the original designs, with floors, walls, and ceilings restored to their 1960s glory. Sharing the building is the smaller Purcell Room, which hosts more intimate chamber music, jazz, and debates. The foyer itself sometimes comes alive with Concrete Lates, monthly club nights featuring electronic music and river views.

The venue opens 90 minutes before performances, and there are bars throughout the Southbank Centre complex for pre-show drinks.

For something scrappier, Waterloo East Theatre is a 100-seat fringe venue tucked into a railway arch near the station. Founded in 2010, it champions new writing and stages European premieres, revivals, and the occasional cult musical. The programming leans adventurous, the bar is well-stocked, and tickets rarely break the bank.

Further east along the riverbank, Shakespeare’s Globe is the open-air reconstruction of the Elizabethan playhouse where the Bard staged his greatest hits. Rebuilt in 1997 after a decades-long campaign by American actor Sam Wanamaker, the thatched ‘wooden O’ hosts productions from spring to autumn, with £5 standing tickets available for groundlings willing to brave the elements. The indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, lit entirely by candlelight, offers a more intimate (and weatherproof) alternative year-round.

The Bottom Line

The South Bank rewards a lack of planning. Turn up at Waterloo, point yourself towards the river, and let the day unfold. You might spend an hour lost in a second-hand bookstall, catch an obscure film from the BFI archive, watch a teenager nail a trick at the Undercroft, or simply sit with a coffee and watch the Thames slide past.

That mix of high culture and street-level energy, of world-class institutions and happily scrappy corners, is what makes this stretch of London so enduringly appealing. Pack comfortable shoes and an open mind.

And if all this culture leaves you craving something slower-paced, the Thames offers very different pleasures further upstream. Here’s our guide to London’s best places for coarse fishing. Rod licence required; patience optional.

There’s a particular thrill in booking a hotel where the restaurant is the main event. When the kitchen holds a Michelin star (or three), dinner becomes less about sustenance and more about theatre, and rolling straight from the dining room to a four-poster bed a few corridors away feels like the only civilised way to end the evening.

These six properties represent the best of British gourmet hospitality, from a 13th-century blacksmith’s forge in Cumbria to an Elizabethan manor in the Sussex countryside. Between them, they hold nine Michelin stars, and each offers something distinct: some grow almost everything they serve, others smoke lobster over whisky barrels or deliver desserts topped with tiny anvils. What unites them is that the food is never an afterthought, and staying the night means you can linger over the wine list without watching the clock.

With all that in mind, here are 6 of our favourite UK hotels with Michelin-starred restaurants.

Moor Hall, Lancashire

Mark Birchall knew he wanted to be a chef from the age of 14, growing up in Chorley watching Brian Turner and James Martin on the telly. In February 2025, his restaurant with rooms became the first outside London to win three Michelin stars since Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume achieved the feat in 2022. The journey there included winning the Roux Scholarship in 2011, a stage at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona (twice voted the world’s best restaurant), and eight years as executive chef at L’Enclume itself.

Moor Hall itself first appears in records in 1282, though its origins likely predate the Norman Conquest. Birchall partnered with local investors Andy and Tracey Bell, who acquired the Grade II-listed property in 2015 and undertook a multi-million pound restoration. Local ceramic artist Sarah Jerath created bespoke crockery from sandstone salvaged during the work.

The striking Scandic-style dining room looks out over the lawns and lake on one side and the open kitchen on the other. Snacks and aperitifs begin in the lounge of the historic main house before guests are led through for a tour of the kitchens, setting the stage for the meal to come.

The Provenance tasting menu (£145 at lunch, £265 at dinner) changes with the seasons, drawing heavily on the estate’s own kitchen gardens and micro-dairy. Birchall’s cooking favours precision over pyrotechnics: a dish of Paris Market carrots gets lifted by Doddington cheese, chrysanthemum and sea buckthorn, while Dorset sika deer arrives alongside beetroot, elderberry and hen of the woods. A course built around ragout with whey, liver and truffled honey shows his willingness to let offal and fermentation take centre stage. Humble beginnings, ancient techniques, hugely impressive results…

The kitchen gardens supply beetroots, turnips, and step-over apple trees, while the site also houses its own micro-dairy, charcuterie operation, and bakery. The Barn, a separate one-Michelin-starred restaurant on the grounds, offers a more relaxed à la carte alternative where duck liver parfait comes with pablo beetroot and blackberry, and Belted Galloway short rib is glazed with black garlic and finished with smoked bone marrow sauce, demonstrating Birchall’s understanding of how seemingly humble ingredients can achieve something extraordinary when handled with precision.

Fourteen bedrooms are spread between the historic main house, the original gatehouse overlooking the lake, and seven newer KOTO-designed garden rooms complete with private hot tubs.

L’Enclume, Cartmel

In 2002, Simon Rogan was living in Littlehampton, hoping to open a restaurant somewhere between Brighton and the New Forest. Then someone mentioned an 800-year-old former smithy in a Cumbrian village he’d never heard of. He made an offer on the way home. The name L’Enclume, French for ‘the anvil’, pays homage to the building’s history as a blacksmith’s workshop, which operated until the 1950s. Original features remain: a centuries-old anvil, brick water basins now used as wine coolers, and the final dessert arrives decorated with an anvil motif.

The restaurant earned its first Michelin star in 2005, its second in 2013, and a third in 2022 on its 20th anniversary. In 2024, L’Enclume took the top spot in La Liste’s global ranking of the world’s best 1,000 restaurants, the first British restaurant to achieve this. Rogan received an MBE for services to hospitality that same year.

The 20-course tasting menu (£265) is served in the intimate stone-walled dining room, where exposed ceiling beams and thick walls give way to views of the River Eea. The setting feels almost ascetic in its calm, the centuries-old building lending weight to what arrives on the plate. The menu celebrates Cumbrian terroir in all its glory. It might begin with a toasted seed, salted mackerel and fermented gooseberry tart accompanied by juices infused with woodruff. A fritter of Duroc pig and smoked eel with lovage and fermented sweetcorn may follow. You might see Orkney scallops arrive with boltardy beetroot cooked in pine vinegar, fresh curds and pickled roses; Red King Edward potatoes could well be cooked with Primor garlic and served alongside steamed crab and lemon verbena.

For mains, expect west coast monkfish with aged pork, autumn brassicas and cuttlefish, or Texel hogget from Gaisgill Row Farm with grilled alliums, nasturtium and anise hyssop. The signature anvil caramel mousse with house-made miso, apple and spruce provides a fitting finale.

Almost everything served comes from Our Farm in the Cartmel Valley, grown organically without pesticides. A dedicated forager ensures wild ingredients make it onto the menu.

The 16 bedrooms are scattered throughout the medieval village, and room reservations guarantee a table at L’Enclume plus breakfast at sister restaurant Rogan & Co. In short, dinner, bed and breakfast doesn’t get more prestigious than this.

Restaurant Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles, Perthshire

Andrew Fairlie began his training at 15, polishing glasses at a hotel in Perth. At 20, he became the first winner of the Roux Scholarship, training under Michel Guérard in south-west France. He opened his own restaurant within Gleneagles in 2001, won a star within eight months, and added a second in 2006, making it Scotland’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant.

The windowless dining room was deliberate: dark wood walls painted in textured Farrow & Ball create an intimate cocoon, while bespoke black crockery by ceramicist John Maguire and food-themed art on the walls add to the sense of luxurious seclusion.

It feels less like a hotel restaurant and more like a private members’ club where the outside world has been deliberately shut out. The signature dish, lobster smoked over Auchentoshan whisky barrel chips for up to 12 hours, has become one of Scotland’s most celebrated plates. The shells are smoked separately from the flesh, which is then returned to the shells and baked at high temperature with melted butter, lime juice and herbs. It arrives traditionally paired with Krug Grand Cuvée, the sweet smokiness of the lobster playing against the champagne’s toasty notes

The dégustation menu reads like a roll call of prime Scottish produce: crab and razor clams appear alongside crab sabayon; fillet of halibut arrives with refined accompaniments; black and blue beef tartare comes with salt-baked beetroot. Other highlights from the à la carte include grilled scallop and poached oyster salad with pimento purée, ravioli of summer truffle with white bean velouté, and veal loin served with shin and sweetbreads in an exquisitely balanced dish where the delicate flavours of the loin mesh with the richer, darker tones of the slow-cooked shin.

Fairlie died in January 2019 following a brain tumour diagnosis, but head chef Stephen McLaughlin, who worked alongside him since the restaurant opened, has maintained both the philosophy and the stars. Produce still comes from a two-acre Victorian walled kitchen garden. Gleneagles holds three MICHELIN Keys and offers 232 rooms alongside championship golf and falconry.

Hambleton Hall, Rutland

Hambleton Hall sits on a peninsula above Rutland Water and has held its Michelin star since 1982, making it the longest continuously held star in the UK. Chef Aaron Patterson has run the kitchen since 1992. Tim and Stefa Hart opened Hambleton in 1980 as one of England’s first country house hotels, inspired by Michel Guérard’s Les Prés d’Eugénie in France.

The Victorian hall was built in 1881 as a hunting box for Walter Marshall, who entertained lavishly and hunted with the Cottesmore, Quorn, Belvoir, and Fernie hounds. Noël Coward was among those who visited when Marshall’s sister Eva inherited the property, writing fondly in his autobiography about fires in the bedroom, brass cans of hot water, and following the hunt in a dog cart. The dining room retains that sense of well-heeled country living: large, well-spaced tables dressed in impeccable white linen, a real log fire in the lounge for coffee afterwards, and an attractive terrace overlooking the immaculate gardens where drinks and canapés can be taken when the weather permits.

Patterson’s à la carte menu (£135 for three courses) changes daily depending on what his suppliers deliver, but expect dishes that balance classical technique with modern touches. Among Patterson’s signature dishes is his cauliflower cheese with spiced lentils and cauliflower beignets, and the delicate beetroot terrine that has endured on the menu for years. The apricot soufflé makes a frequent appearance at dessert, alongside Patterson’s mille-feuille of apple and blackberry. He’s got a wicked way with the sweet stuff, this guy.

Today, 17 bedrooms are individually styled, and the bakery in a nearby village supplies bread to the restaurant and for guests to take home. There’s a staff-to-guest ratio of around 55 to 17 (or, you know, three to one if you don’t care about being pedantry), and views stretch across England’s largest artificial lake.

Gravetye Manor, West Sussex

Gravetye Manor was built in 1598 by ironmaster Richard Infield for his bride Katherine (their initials remain carved in stone above the entrance), but its fame comes from William Robinson, who purchased the property in 1885. Known as the ‘Father of the English Flower Garden’, Robinson spent 50 years rebelling against Victorian formality, championing native plants and the ‘wild garden’, ideas that influenced Gertrude Jekyll and the Arts & Crafts movement. He planted 100,000 narcissi along one of the lakes in a single year.

His two-acre walled kitchen garden, with its unique elliptical sandstone walls (thought to be the only one of its kind in the country), still supplies the one-Michelin-starred restaurant. The dining room was redesigned in 2018 with floor-to-ceiling glass walls that provide uninterrupted views of the glorious gardens, creating the sense that you’re eating within them rather than merely looking out at them. Noise levels are blissfully low, and the atmosphere manages to be both refined and unstufffy.

New executive chef Martin Carabott (a 2018 Roux Scholar who did time at Eleven Madison Park) took the helm in April 2025, and the kitchen garden remains the foundation of his menu planning. The luxury of being able to use fruit and vegetables that have fully ripened on the vine, sometimes picked just two hours before service, is rarely replicated elsewhere.

Head gardener Tom Coward manages the 35 acres of grounds, which featured on Planet Earth 3. The star has been held since 2015. The 18 bedrooms retain original features including stone windows and wooden beams. Despite being just 30 minutes from London and 12 miles from Gatwick, the setting within Ashdown Forest feels wonderfully remote.

Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, Lake District

Gilpin Hotel has been run by the Cunliffe family since 1987, growing from a modest country house into a two-property Lakeland empire with 38 bedrooms, two restaurants, and resident llamas. The flagship restaurant, SOURCE, holds one Michelin star under executive chef Ollie Bridgwater, who spent over five years as sous chef at Heston Blumenthal’s three-starred Fat Duck before arriving at Gilpin.

The ten-course tasting menu (£120) is served in the ground-floor dining room, which seats up to sixty but never feels crowded. The atmosphere strikes a balance between precision and playfulness that mirrors the food itself, with friendly, knowledgeable staff who seem genuinely enthusiastic about explaining each course.

The menu blends British ingredients with Japanese influences and Bridgwater’s Fat Duck-honed precision. Berry-red glazed orbs of smooth chicken liver parfait, rich with brandy, arrive circled by dots of blackcurrant gel and horseradish cream on a toasted base of spiced pain d’épice. A croustade of lobster comes with kombucha, pickled daikon, yuzu and ponzu, its piquant elements playing beautifully off the sweet lobster.

That Cornish lobster appears again later with red curry and braised lettuce, while turbot might be served with salsify, nashi pear, kombu and roast bone sauce. For mains, expect Lake District chicken with wild garlic foraged from the fells, morels and XO sauce. For those wanting a shorter experience, the three-course Origin menu (£90) offers the same creativity over fewer courses.

The main hotel sprawls across 21 acres and includes spa lodges with private saunas and outdoor hot tubs. Gilpin Lake House, a mile away, offers just eight bedrooms sharing 100 acres of private grounds with its own tarn. Both properties hold two MICHELIN Keys. Gilpin Spice, the two-AA-rosette pan-Asian restaurant, provides a more relaxed alternative with an open kitchen.

The Bottom Line

Tasting menus and long wine pairings don’t mix well with car keys or last trains. These six hotels solve that problem beautifully, letting you stumble from dining room to pillow without a care, then wake up to grounds worth exploring and a breakfast that doesn’t feel like an afterthought. What’s not to love?

Another Michelin key holding hotel we’ve really recently enjoyed is The Yard in Bath. You can check out our full review of it here, if you like.