NORTH
The Bridge
58 Bridge Street, Manchester, 0161 834 0242.
Chef Robert Owen Brown insists the Bridge is a food pub, 'not a gastropub because I hate the word'. Fair enough. What matters is that the food is good and distinctly local: Morecambe Bay shrimps on buttery crumpets, black pudding patties with poached eggs, and roast chicken in a wild garlic and smoked bacon broth. Yes, he may have put roast duck spring rolls on the menu, but the ducks came from Nantwich. JR

LONDON
The Hartley Bar and Dining Rooms
64 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1, 020 7394 7023
There is a commitment to sourcing spectacular ingredients at the Hartley, which is exactly what you want from a food pub so close to the famed Borough Market. It won't just be goat's cheese. It will be Trysmore goat's cheese. You'll know which breed your steak came from, and who reared the pig which supplied the pig's head. Décor is bold - red painted walls, hardy furniture - and the mood relaxed. JR

The Eagle
159 Farringdon Road, London EC1, 020 7837 1353
The joint where it all started back in the early Nineties and one for which I have a deep affection: I held my wedding reception here exactly 14 years ago, in June 1992. The open kitchen, the food orders at the bar, and the junk-shop furniture created a model many others have followed. Despite all those years on the clock, the food has remained remarkably consistent, ploughing a gutsy Mediterranean furrow. This is big, bold one-plate food - roasted rosemary-studded lamb, for example, or their famed 'bife ana' marinated steak sandwich. JR

Anchor and Hope
36 The Cut, London SE1, 020 7928 9898
The bastard child of the Eagle and St John - the founders worked for both - this utilitarian space in one of South London's less lovely streets near Waterloo, specialises in big, butch dishes: rillettes, grilled duck heart salads, brown crab meat on toast. They also do large roasts - duck, goose, shoulder of lamb - to be shared between whole tables. Recently they introduced a set Sunday lunch, for which you can book. Sadly, the rest of the week they have an irritating fi rst-come fi rstserved policy. JR

The Prince Regent
69 Dulwich Road, London SE24, 020 7274 1567
I campaigned for years to see this old South London boozer get the gastro treatment. Why? Because it's round the corner from my house and I wanted a gastropub like every other neighbourhood in the city. I couldn't be happier with the results. Great onglet and chips, a sturdy approach to pork belly and boisterous Sunday lunches when the kids run rampant. JR

The Oak
137 Westbourne Park Road, London W2, 020 7221 3395
In a big, high-ceilinged room with dark slatted blinds and chocolate-brown walls, you can get first-rate pizzas from the wood-fired oven, and modern European dishes that are way ahead of the usual offerings both in terms of authenticity and execution. Think caponata with goat's cheese and zarzuela of fish with saffron, plus hearty French and British dishes like confit of pork with Jerusalem artichokes. The place is packed with a huge cross-section of Londoners: mummies with kids in tow, serious elderly diners and hip media types. It's the sort of sprawling, inclusive, feel-good eatery that every neighbourhood should have. DH

The House
63-69 Canonbury Road, London N1, 020 7704 7410
Talented chef Jeremy Hollingsworth turns out a redoubtable jambon persillé with a salad of warm potatoes and grain mustard dressing, revitalises shepherd's pie by making it with sweet chunks of braised lamb shank, delivers a mean eggs Benedict and a damned fi ne roast chicken. The food is largely traditional French, with a few American and British classics thrown in, and is neither fussy nor fashionable. Gastropubs now stand or fall by their cooking, and this one will stand. DH

SOUTH
Three Tuns
58 Middlebridge Street, Romsey, Hampshire, 01794 512639
The menu changes daily but is principally French in character with a smattering of British classics. This is the kind of eatery you might have lunch in after a morning's shopping in Avignon or Bayeux. Serving food to warm your soul, like pork rillettes with crudites and cornichons and braised shoulder of lamb with onion gravy and potato puree, this cooking is careful, exact and full of flavour. DH