Midlands Restaurant Guide

Proudly billed as a 'local pub for local people', the Royal Oak at Bovingdon Green near Marlow is out of the same Home Counties' stable as The Alford Arms, Frithsden, The Swan Inn, Denham, The Black Horse at Fulmer and The Old Queens Head, Penn.

Frieth Road, Bovingdon Green, Buckinghamshire

The Ivy House is set between the Old Town of Amersham and the pretty village of Chalfont St Giles on the A413, a 17th-century brick-and-flint free house that offers everything you can expect from a country pub which is steeped in history and has one of the best views in the Chilterns.

London Road, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

An immaculately thatched pub in Newton Longville, a quiet village within easy reach of Milton Keynes, the Crooked Billet still feels a bit like a well-tended local hostelry - although the menus and wine list tell a different story.

2 Westbrook End, Newton Longville, Buckinghamshire

Waldo's is the fine dining restaurant situated in Clivedon House, named after Thomas Waldo Story, the sculptor of the iconic Fountain of Love in the hotel's sweeping driveway.

Cliveden House, Cliveden, Berkshire

For many people, Hambleton Hall is the archetypal country house hotel and restaurant. The setting – high above Rutland Water (Europe's largest man-made lake) – is a pure delight and the views are stunning.

, Hambleton, Rutland

Standing amid graceful gardens on the north shore of Rutland Water, Barnsdale Lodge started life as a seventeenth-century stone farmhouse on the Exton Estate (home of the locally renowned Noel family).

The Avenue, Oakham, Rutland

The richly appetising name 'Goose Fat & Garlic' might conjure up juicy thoughts of provincial France, but this popular restaurant/wine bar inhabits another world - in this case the pretty Hertfordshire village of Sawbridgeworth.

52 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire

For more than 400 years, the George and Dragon has been at the hub of local life in the charming Hertfordshire village of Watton at Stone.

High Street, Watton at Stone, Hertfordshire

Set in the unruffled Hertfordshire hamlet of Frithsden (a short drive from Berkhamsted), the Alford Arms is the original of a group of five enterprising Home Counties' gastro pubs, and it's a hostelry full of surprises.

Frithsden, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

Saffron Restaurant situated on the busy Wolverhampton Road in Oldbury is an established Indian Restaurant that has many accolades to its name, including Best Restaurant in the Midlands by the Good Food Guide 2010 and the first Indian restaurant in Birmingham to receive a rosette from the AA Restaurant Guide.

909 Wolverhampton Road, Oldbury, West Midlands