THE UK’S BEST HOTELS WITH MICHELIN STAR RESTAURANTS

This fine dining restaurant at The Manor House hotel – a 17th-century hotel in the Cotswold village of Castle Combe – has held a Michelin star since 2017, a year after Robert Potter came onboard as executive chef and applied his ethos of precise preparation and simple presentation to the modern-classic British fare. Fresh produce, much of it homegrown in the onsite vegetable garden and orchard, is also key. Choose from four courses or the tasting menu: the former could include, for instance, chalk stream trout with wasabi and oysters, followed by Huntsham Farm middle white pork with celeriac, turnip, chard, and black garlic. The latter is an expanded 10-course version that might feature two sweet courses at the end: alphonso mango say, followed by Yorkshire rhubarb. The restaurant itself, which is named after the river that winds through the grounds, is elegant yet relaxed (exposed brick walls, timber rafters and tables) and doubles up as the place for breakfast for guests staying overnight.

MICHELIN star restaurant Àclèaf in Devon is a unique dining experience where Scott Paton’s seasonally led signature four-course menu takes centre stage.Overlooking the Great Hall in Boringdon Hall Hotel, fine dining restaurant Àclèaf (which means oak leaf) is a showcase of inventive British food, as imagined through the creative cooking lens of head chef Scott Paton. It was awarded its first Michelin star in 2023. The four-course dinner menu is seasonal (with the option of a wine flight pairing); the ingredients are locally sourced in Devon. There is a choice of four options for each course of the menu. So, for instance, scallop with ginger and kafir lime could be followed by highland wagyu; tune with shiso and sesame might whet your appetite for veal with white truffle and allium. Desserts include cherry with crème fraiche, and apricot with vanilla and elderflower. The setting is intimate and romantic, with a low-beamed ceiling, white linen-cloth tables, and leadwork windows. The rest of the hotel is equally lovely, whether you decide to sample a quintessential afternoon tea or book in for a pampering treatment in the Gaia spa.

Cumbria is known for having the most Michelin-starred restaurants outside London – and SOURCE at The Gilpin, the flagship dining space at Gilpin Hotel, is one of them. Overseen by executive chef Ollie Bridgwater, who has a Michelin star from (he was previously at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck), it offers two dinner tasting menus – the four-course ORIGIN and seven-course SOURCE – and a lunch menu (available Fridays and Saturdays). Both dinner options can be tailored with a choice of starter, main course, and dessert, to create a personalised tasting menu. Dishes might include, for instance, Cornish turbot with razor clams followed by Cumbrian chicken with wild garlic, white asparagus, stuffed morel, and parsley root. Start the evening with a gin and tonic in the bar or one of the sitting rooms; after supper, bed down in the Edwardian country house or at Gilpin Lake House, a rebuilt fishing lodge a mile down the road.

A renowned pioneer of plot-to-plate cooking, Raymond Blanc OBE has held two Michelin stars at this fine dining restaurant since opening it in 1984. More recently, seasonality, foraging, and a zero-waste approach have earned the restaurant an additional Green Michelin star. The menu typically features around 90 aromatic herbs, fruits, and vegetables grown in the hotel’s apple and pear orchards and two-acre potager garden. Alongside the à la carte menus, there are a six-course lunch and a seven-course dinner option, plus a plant-based version for both. Aside from the destination dining experience, you can wander along the lavender-fringed pathways to the manicured lawns, Japanese tea garden, or wildflower meadow; sign up for lessons in the cookery school; or try the new cocktail-making experience in the bar.