The Dew Pond Restaurant

You really need a summer's day, dining alfresco on the raised decking terrace of this country restaurant in a pair of converted 16th-century drover's cottages to appreciate the vista across the eponymous dew pond to Watership Down and Highclere Castle among the verdant folds of rural Hampshire. But all is far from lost if the weather sends you indoors, since two cosy dining rooms come with venerable oak beams, calming pastels and colourful artwork. The kitchen looks to the local area for its supplies and follows an intelligent modern course, turning out appealingly uncomplicated dishes along the lines of crispy fillet of sea bass with monkfish tempura, ratatouille, basil and sweet pepper juices, followed by saddle of local roe deer with creamed potato, Savoy cabbage, chestnuts, shallots and port wine sauce.