Harcourts Restaurant

The red-brick Deans Place is about 600 years old, and once stood at the centre of acres of sprawling farmland worked by a Sussex gentry family. A hotel for the past century, it sits on a bank of the River Cuckmere in a restful setting, and is done in plain but elegant style within. Terrace tables look tempting for sunny days, while the main dining room, Harcourts, has a shimmering primrose colour-scheme and a piano. A gentle style of country-house modern British is the prevailing culinary mode, offering starters such as confit rabbit terrine with beetroot marmalade and pesto, or truffled mushroom soup, and then grilled skate with pink grapefruit and caper butter, or chicken breast with sweetcorn rösti, a fricassée of greens and chive velouté, to follow. The last word in indulgence is the dessert of banana mousse with Tia Maria syrup and chocolate shortbread.