Restaurant Dominic Chapman, Henley-on-Thames

This isn't going to be a very long post because, well, it wasn't a very long lunch. Sometimes you want to spend all day cooing over a tasting menu, getting through way too many bottles of wine and ending up leaving just as the next set of guests are arriving for dinner. Sometimes - quite often, in fact, in my case - that is very much what you want.

But then some other times, you want one or two courses, a glass of well-chosen fizz, and to then head off for a day in the sun. That's not to say Restaurant Dominic Chapman isn't a lovely place to hang around - it's the flagship restaurant of the very smart Relais Henley-on-Thames, which can boast some buildings dating back to the 14th century, and has for the best part of the last 300 years been a hotel right on the banks of the river. There's a plush dining room with conservatory opening on to an expansive, sun-drenched (at least on this day it was) courtyard, but I recommend you get the best of both worlds by sitting on the soft furniture just by the open doors, which still feels quite al-fresco.

As I said, we skipped starters and dove straight into mains. House burger was very nicely done, with a huge lump of lovely crumbly beef and what felt very much like a kind of custom house dressing somewhere between mayonnaise and a Caesar dressing. Fries were perfect - crunchy and golden and moreish, and were very swiftly all hoovered up. They make their own actual mayonnaise, too, which as any Belgian will tell you is the best thing to dip chips into.

I've been served enough dry, mealy, overcooked duck in my time to know that to get it as good as this - tender as you like, pink in the middle, with just a touch of crunch on the skin and a good thick, salty, rich sauce - requires proper kitchen skills. And this might be a good idea to talk about the titular Dominic Chapman, who I first bumped into cooking at the (now sadly departed) Royal Oak Paley Street. He then spent a good few years touring round some of the best kitchens in east Berkshire - the Beehive in White Waltham, the Crown at Burchett's Green - before finally opening this, his own place, with his own name above the door. His is a well-practiced and classically trained kitchen, and the years of experience shines through in every dish.

We were so impressed, in fact, that we decided to stick around for desserts. Both were basically fautless in that English country gastropub style, a sticky toffee pudding all gooey and syrupy, and a superb treacle tart, each served with lovely soft house ice cream. I perhaps would have liked to detect a bit more (in fact, any) advertised honeycomb in the treacle tart ice cream as it's one of my favourite things in the world, but maybe they forgot. Anyway, no real harm done.

The bill came to £94.60, which I realise isn't super cheap but then this is Henley, in rather plush surroundings, and did include a very nice glass of Rathfinny fizz (Sussex). I also notice that their website lists a £20 for two courses (£25 for three) lunch menu which we weren't offered, so this might just be weekdays. Either way, it is possible to eat here on more of a budget, just as it's equally possible to have four full courses, go HAM on the wine list and spend all day here. All approaches are valid.

However you approach your time at the Relais though - and plenty of people were just doing drinks and snacks in the courtyard, which also seemed positively encouraged - I can't imagine you're likely to come away disappointed. A kitchen as accomplished as this can, I imagine, turn their hand to more or less anything and make a success of it, but serving crowd-pleasing Fresh-British classics in lovely surroundings for a decent amount of money is a surefire way to win yourself fans, just just from the lucky residents of Henley but much further afield. They've certainly made one of me.

8/10

The Dew Drop Inn, Hurley

I think the Dew Drop Inn must exist, because I have photographic proof I was there on Saturday afternoon, sheltering from the wind and rain in their front bar, cozying up next to a log fire and sipping on a pint of ale. I can see the payment on my credit card statement, I can see the return to Maidenhead on the GWR app, and I have a friend who I met for lunch that day who will also confirm all of the above to be true. In all probability, the Dew Drop Inn does exist.

And yet barely two days later, my memory of eating there is so blissful and surreal that if I didn't have a paper trail of receipts and visual aides-mémoire I'd genuinely start to question whether it happened at all. To begin with, there's the location, buried deep in the Berkshire countryside, surrounded by thick forest and at the end of a long (and frequently flooded) dirt track so far from passing trade it's like they're trying to be as inaccessible and mysterious as possible. All the way down that impossibly unlikely road you convince yourself you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, or the sat nav is out of date, until all of a sudden you turn a corner and there it is, a quaint little 17th century pile, a quiet puff of wood smoke from the chimney the only sign, at first, anyone is home.

Inside are stone-flagged floors, low-beamed ceilings, a cute bar serving local beers and various immensely comfortable looking tables, most tucked into the corners and within hand-warming distance of the fire. For an English pub fanatic like me, this would be more than enough - these are my happy places, these ancient pubs - the first thing I'd miss if I moved abroad, and the first places I'd seek out on my return. If I'd only had a pint of Brakspear then headed back to the big smoke, it would not have been a wasted journey.

Except, perched on each table in charmingly florid handwriting, is a five-course menu of sophisticated French classics, exquisitely tasteful and desperately tempting, with the frankly unbelievable price of £39 stated underneath. Now, I don't know the last time you had a five-course lunch for £39 but I'm guessing a) it likely wasn't in the last decade and b) didn't look anywhere near as exciting as this. And the first thing to arrive wasn't even listed - some completely brilliant crunchy batons of - I think they said - fermented yoghurt bread, hot out of the oven and served with a dreamy salted butter.

First course proper was a dainty little pile of white crab meat studded with tiny cubes of grapefruit, then on top of that a lattice of gently pickled apples. I've had a variation on this dish at chef Simon Bonwick's previous place the Crown at Burchett's Green (which is still going, headed by Dom Chapman formerly of the Beehive) and enjoyed it, but here it seemed improved and elevated, with a more robust crab element bound by a light mayonnaise, and more interesting citrussy accompaniments.

Next came a stupidly generous slab of pâté en croûte, bursting with salty, porky filling and with a very clever central layer of some kind of mousse. It came with a selection of house pickles, my favourite as ever being pickled onions. I don't know why I don't have a picture of them - probably too busy eating them.

The pâté en croûte would have been a perfectly decent main course in its own right, but the Dew Drop weren't done yet, not by a long shot. The main course - duck, from Crediton in Devon, was a hundred different masterclasses at once, and describing just how brilliant every bit of it was could easily run to thousands of words, but I'll try and keep it brief. Firstly the animal itself was cooked perfectly, pink and tender with a layer of fat on each morsel just enough to season and provide an irresistable burst of expertly rendered fat, but then you might expect at least that from a kitchen with such pedigree. It came dressed in a stunning glossy sauce, the kind of thing it takes lifetimes to learn, balanced and beautiful and studded with juniper berries which popped delightfully in the mouth.

That would have been enough - more than enough - without two little shapes of pickled beetroot which packed full of zingy flavour, a roasted chestnut and roasted clove of garlic which were great fun eaten together, and a fondant potato so buttery and smooth it almost dissolved in the mouth. And yet, that still wasn't all. Alongside this wonderful plate of food, we were served a dollop of silky smooth mashed potato topped with crispy shallots, as well as a pot of honey-glazed (I think, apologies if I'm wrong on that) carrots and broccoli. It was all quite overwhelming, and I had every intention of just trying a mouthful of each element until I realised how good it all was and nearly did myself an injury attempting to shovel it all down. And remember, these weren't extra sides - they came as part of that £39 lunch. Included.

Dessert was something called a "Crème Chiboust", not a phrase I'd come across before but eating Simon (and increasingly his son Charlie) Bonwick's food is never anything less than an education. It was a kind of a light cream dessert studded with tiny bits of meringue, served with a fantastic pistachio ice cream, and it all disappeared in record time. Oh and they also served a little cube of house baklava on the side, because why not.

We still weren't done. Alongside a giant bucket of excellent Armagnac ("You must drink it all," I was told; I was hardly about to disobey) was a piping hot caramel canelé, equally the match of any of London's best patisseries. And though I might have suspected that Armagnac and canelé make a good match, it is my pleasure to report that they most certainly actually do.

Now, full disclosure, that Armagnac didn't turn up on the bill, so many thanks to them for that because it certainly put a spring in my step for the rest of the afternoon. But something else that didn't turn up on the bill was a service charge - they leave it entirely up to you how much to add - so we happily added on the standard 12.5% and ended up with a total of £54 each for what was easily one of the most mature and sophisticated classical French menus of recent years. It's no exaggeration to say that if we'd paid three times that each, we still would have considered it value.

So it's not just the generosity of spirit and portion sizes; it's not just the complete mastery of classical French technique evident in every last morsel of food served from that tiny kitchen staffed by two people; it's not even just the sparkling service and magical atmosphere of this ancient building nestled deep in the English woods. It's all of these things, and more - a miraculous, singular anomaly which is hard to believe exists at all. There's only one thing for it - I'll have to go back. Just to be sure.

10/10

The Loch and the Tyne, Old Windsor

Driving through the pouring rain to the latest addition to Adam Handling's fast-growing restaurant empire, it occurred to me how much previous positive experience of the same chef's food has the ability to lift spirits far in advance of sitting down to your meal. I'm always optimistic about restaurants, don't get me wrong - and although it's sometimes hard to believe, I never visit anywhere I know I'm going to have a bad time, outside of the yearly public vote horrors that is - but despite the weather, despite the untested location and despite a slightly scary final leg of the journey by petrol power in a part of the country still plagued by "No Fuel" signs in petrol forecourts, I knew, as much as I knew anything, that this would be a good meal.

The reason for my confidence was The Frog by Adam Handling, a place in Covent Garden I'd visited in 2017 (oh so long ago) and which presented a series of stunning, theatrical dishes with a bewildering command of technique, climaxing in something called "chicken butter" which bordered on life-changing. The meal overall wasn't perfect, but as ever it's the odd missteps you forget and the highlights you remember, and the flavour of that "chicken butter" burned itself into my soul. It's still on the menu. You should try it.

It's also on the menu at Loch and the Tyne, a tastefully relaunched boozer at a place called Old Windsor, which as far as I can tell isn't that old, and isn't really Windsor. But that doesn't matter, because sheltered from the rain in this cosy spot, plied with a lovely citrussy tequila-based drink called a Pulp Fiction, all the worries of the world seemed to fade away. A desire to try all new dishes prevented me from ordering the chicken butter this time, but perhaps things like that are best left to the memories anyway - I've never much been one for nostalgia.

What we did order were these, bitesize doughnuts sprinkled with an umami-bomb of grated parmesan, and containing an unbelievably rich and moreish cheese/bechamel filling which burst on the tongue. Sometimes I like to scare myself by playing a thought experiment whenever I come across something so tasty and easy to eat - how many of these could I finish off in one sitting? I think when it comes to Handling's cheese doughnuts the number may realistically reach into the dozens. I'm not proud of that.

Equally impressive in a different way were these rice crackers topped with tomato and corn bound with a silky-smooth guacamole, which had the balance of all the different elements just right as well as boasting an eye-opening (if not watering) kick of chilli. Again, distressingly easy to eat and packed full of flavour, I could have finished off a whole bucket of these too, which would probably be a better idea health-wise than the doughnuts.

£18 for a macaroni cheese main and £20 for the same with truffle seemed like a bit of a bargain, and there was certainly no denying they went full-on with the truffle, coating the bowl with a good, thick layer. Unfortunately, the two of us somehow read the £20 supplement as the total price for the dish (it was written as "Mac & Cheese 'our way' £18 - add truffle +£20" which although not exactly wrong is perhaps a little ambiguous) and so this bowl of cheese, pasta and truffle cost £38. However, that all said, it was really nice, right up there with the best versions from places like Goodman or Hawksmoor. As you might expect, in fact, for £38.

"That comes baked inside haggis, is that OK?" they asked when I ordered the Balmoral chicken. Yes, my friends, yes that's more than OK. And not only does the combination of chicken and haggis, as it turns out, make complete sense and taste wonderful, especially when served with a glossy chicken jus and a baked onion with onion purée, girolles and various leaves and herbs, the geometric precision of the chicken/haggis and the way they'd turned the onion and girolles into a kind of miniature forest, was breathtaking to behold. I realise presentation isn't everything, and yes this dish would have been nothing had it not also tasted brilliant, but the visuals just took it all to another level.

While we can quibble about the description of the truffle supplement (and I'm prepared to admit I'm completely wrong on that too), I definitely only have myself to blame for not noticing the tart tatin had a 35 min lead time, and by the time lunch service was in full swing that had stretched to over an hour. And while I would have perhaps entertained myself happily for the half if not the full hour, one of our party was 4 months old and ran the risk of being a little less forgiving, and so on this occasion sadly we passed. Soft serve banana ice cream was lovely though, with chunks of dried banana and something called "spiced ricotta" which I think may have included cinnamon.

The bill for two came to £128 with two glasses of wine and the aformentioned cocktail, as well as a coffee, and though nowhere near unreasonable in itself would me more like £50/head if you didn't go so heavy on the truffle. Also, although for some reason I forgot to take the photo of them we got garlic and thyme chips, great big crunchy things all creamy inside, which were gorgeous, so there really was plenty of food.

And anyway, good food costs money, as it should, and the food at the Loch and the Tyne is better than most. It's one of life's great pleasures (as far as I'm concerned) to discover a chef who seems to know all your favourite things and how to present them at their absolute best. And being a slightly more relaxed (though no less enjoyable I'm sure) operation than the 5-star Chelsea hotel the Cadogan, or indeed his £125 tasting menu joint in St Ives (though obviously I really, really want to go to those too), you get to enjoy this spectacularly inventive and rewarding grub for a little bit less. And even less than that, if you can read a menu properly - but hey, truffle or no truffle, there's an awful lot to love about the Loch and the Tyne.

9/10

The Wellington Arms, Baughurst

The Wellington Arms is not, in my opinion, a gastropub. Yes, I know it's number 33 on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, and is a building that looks quite a lot like a pub, and it has a pubby name. But a dealbreaker in the whole pub/not-a-pub definition, as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not you can turn up without a reservation, sit at the bar and have a pint of beer without committing to a full meal, and if you can't do that, that's not a pub, that's a restaurant.

However. Aside from that one crucial disqualifier, on most other measurable indices the Wellington Arms ticks all the boxes. The menu, for one, is absolutely solid gastropub territory, with perennial favourites like steak and fish and chips sitting beside seasonal delicacies like wood pigeon and rabbit terrine. It reminded me very strongly of the Parkers Arms menu, another exquisitely tasteful and accessible piece of menu work, and in fact despite this corner of the Hampshire/Berkshire border being somewhat more moneyed than Bowland (one couple turned up in a Tesla) the prices are just as reasonable, with starters around £8-£9 and mains largely under £20.

Of course it's one thing writing a pretty menu, quite another delivering on it. Fortunately, the kitchens at the Wellington have more than enough of a grasp of British pub aesthetic and French technique to make good on their promises. Potted crab was pretty much perfect, a teacup filled with spiced crab meat (white and brown) and plenty of butter, with a generous amount of the house sourdough to spread it on.

Westcombe cheddar soufflé was an absolute beauty, a cloud of salty, fluffy dairy that dissolved in the mouth like savoury candy floss. But even more impressive than the soufflé itself was a layer of thin discs of courgette underneath, soaked in a delicate cheese sauce, that added just enough salad to prevent all that dairy becoming overwhelming. It was a seriously good soufflé.

The beer batter on these courgette flowers had a good crunch and a pleasing hoppy flavour of its own, and stands as a good indicator that the Wellington Arms fish and chips would have had plenty to recommend it. Here, though, it was holding in a filling of ricotta and mozzarella, and made a very enjoyable vegetarian starter. I've seen more tempura-like, thinner batters on other courgette flower dishes, but I quite liked the continuity of using the same batter as the fish and chips. Because why not?

The problem with serving pies in 2018 you are now automatically pitched against the work of Calum Franklin of Holborn Dining Rooms, and Stosie Madi of the Parkers Arms, who in the last couple of years have redefined how good the humble pie can be, and brought quite dramatically higher expectations down on pies that until recently could have been considered above reproach. It's not that the Wellington Arms venison pot pie is bad, or even not worth the very reasonable £17.75 they're asking for it, it's just you can't imagine the Holborn Dining Rooms or Parkers Arms serving meat just the wrong side of dry, that stuck to the mouth, and in a rather thin, wine-y sauce that needed a bit more beefing up with stock.

Scallops wrapped in pancetta is another familiar gastropub play, and the Wellington are too confident and skillful an operation to serve anything less than a hugely enjoyable version of it. I suppose if you were determined to pick fault you could say that with a dish like this the kitchens are playing it safe somewhat, but then it's almost certainly only tragic saddos like me that could ever be "bored" with scallops wrapped in pancetta, as nobody else had an issue with them.

Perhaps a more reasonable criticism of the place is that despite a large and spectacular kitchen garden, the number of items marked "HG" (Home Grown) on the menu was limited to a few salad leaves and courgettes (plus flowers). Broad beans were apparently not ready yet, which is nobody's fault, but I spotted plenty of plump red strawberries in the garden which featured nowhere on the desserts menu, and things like Jersey Royals and other root vegetables, asparagus, tomatoes and peas were all bought in. Sincere apologies to the Wellington Arms if I'm completely trivialising the difficulties of running a functioning professional kitchen garden, but as one of those hopeless tragic saddos I mentioned earlier my first instinct when given a menu is to pick whatever the restaurant has been able to grow themselves, and on that front it was slim pickings.

But despite this, it was still hard not to be impressed by the sheer hospitality, warmth and professionalism of the Wellington Arms team. Desserts, solid if unspectacular versions of a treacle tart and Eton Mess (the latter using home grown rhubarb at least) would have been much harder to fault had the pacing of the evening and attentiveness of the staff been anything less than perfect the whole evening. And just look at that bill - without the £20 worth of jams and chutneys we took home with us this accomplished and enjoyable meal in charming surroundings came to under £50/head. By anyone's standards, this is a bargain.

So though not in the very top-tier of its ilk, there's still plenty to recommend at the Wellington, and you'd have to be very unlucky indeed to not to come away from a meal here thinking you'd got far more than your money's worth. And it's worth pointing out that the Top 50 Gastropub list that I have been working my way through over the last couple of years, pedantic definition of "gastropub" aside, is yet to really offer up a significant dud. Picking an entry and planning a day or two based around a meal there is a pretty-much-guaranteed way of having a lovely country gastro-break. So, where next?

8/10