The Inn at Woburn

If watching the big cats feeding at the Woburn Abbey estate's safari park has brought on an appetite, head for the Georgian coaching inn where chef Olivier Bertho delivers refined Anglo-French cooking in a smart country-house setting. The venue is rather posher than its 'inn' title suggests, furnished as it is with clubby buttoned leather seating at bare wooden tables, displays of lilies in blue-and-white Chinese vases, and gilt mirrors on neutral cream and mushroom-hued walls. The food is a labour-intensive take on the modern French idiom - grilled scallops with pea purée, beetroot coulis and chervil oil is one way to start, before turning to something like an assiette of pork with cider jus, comprising belly pork with red cabbage, pork fillet on colcannon with apple jam, and mini meatballs with sage and tomato coulis. Leave room for a multi-faceted dessert such as an 'assiette du verger' (orchard assiette) involving tarte Tatin, blackberry pannacotta and vanilla crème brûlée.