Humphry's at Stoke Park

Find the restaurant in the principal manor house, the first large building as you approach along the drive that meanders through golf courses. Stoke Park is a hotel and country club on the grand scale, entirely suited to be the film location that it often is. The dining room is all textured wall coverings and soaring windows, its splendour making a suitably ritzy backdrop to the modish British cooking on offer. That may take in a starter that teams fillet of sardines escabèche with peppers in a spicy tomato sauce and splashes of beetroot oil, before mains that run the gamut from sea bass with mussel and clam ragoût in vermouth cream to roast venison with baby turnips and a fig and red onion tart in juniper-scented sauce. Earl Grey tea has become a stalwart of modern desserts: here it appears in the guise of a crème caramel, served with a slice of prune and Armagnac cake and Williams pear sorbet.