Wernher Restaurant

Luton Hoo is worth a visit, whatever your business. An entire committee of the great and the very great in Britain's design pantheon have contributed to it. The east front is by Robert Adam, the west by Sir Robert Smirke (architect of the British Museum), and the grounds were laid out by 'Capability' Brown. Now a top-drawer hotel, it is full of eye-popping decorative richness within, barely more so than in the Wernher dining room, a Beaux Arts treasure house of marble panelling, ornate chandeliers and opulent fabrics. Farm-to-table traceability is the laudable principle of the menus, and the food has all the modern British credentials you could ask for. Crisp-fried soft-shelled crab with chicory and radish salad and ginger beurre noisette, or pig's trotter tortellini with braised apple and celeriac velouté, the last element thoughtfully 'aerated' for you, may lead on to a wood-pigeon baked in hay, served with sweetcorn pannacotta, cavolo nero, gaufrette potato and honeycomb jus. All of which may make the offer of Arctic Roll for pud sound a trifle prosaic - except that it's not that sort of Arctic Roll, but one that comes with cranberry ripple ice cream, baby oranges poached in Grand Marnier and vanilla foam. See separate entry for Adam's Brasserie.