Vespers

If you're in the Basingstoke area, the luxurious modern Apollo Hotel is handily placed near the M3 to provide gastronomic succour. Culinary endeavours focus on its fine-dining Vespers restaurant, a sleek venue kitted out with curvaceous wood and leather chairs at linen-clothed tables, and vibrant modern abstract art to inject a note of contrasting colour into the neutral contemporary palette. As its name hints, it is a dinner-only affair, where the kitchen deals in a crowd-pleasing repertoire of modern European dishes - monkfish medallions with cauliflower emulsion and curried oil, perhaps, followed by pot roast pheasant breast with chanterelle mushroom risotto, and an assiette of apple comprising crumble, mousse, toffee apple and sorbet to provide a multi-textured finish.