The Churchill Hotel

A fine late Georgian mansion house in its own grounds on the main approach into Ebor (now York), The Churchill is reborn as an appealing boutique city hotel. Determinedly gentle on the eye, it's done in pale pastels inside, with the rose-coloured Piano Restaurant looking out on to the front lawn, where the trees are spangled in fairy-lights, as though it were Christmas every day. Background muzak may not be to everyone's taste, but the restaurant here is so named because it revives the practice, now all but lost to grand-hotel tradition, of accompanying dinner with discreet live playing. It makes a soothing backdrop to the inventive flair of the menus, where regional produce from dale and moorland finds its way into dishes with plenty of imagination. A robustly textured chicken, leek and shiitake terrine is offset with curried rémoulade, celeriac and a breadcrumbed quail's egg. Fish might be a chunk of cod with sweet potato, Jerusalem artichoke purée and garlicky foam, and there is depth and lustre in the pot-roasted Bedale venison loin, which comes with beetroot and apple, and a (not entirely successful) anointing of Yorkshire rapeseed oil.