(All prices quoted are based on double rooms and include breakfast)

The Star Inn
Harome, near Helmsley, Yorkshire

This pretty fourteenth-century thatched inn has earned a Michelin star for its superb food. A weekly changing menu currently includes game terrine with onion marmalade and blood orange salad, casserole of local fallow deer with green ginger wine, root vegetables and celeriac puree and a Bramley apple and sultana crumble with black treacle ice cream and mulled cider. Some of the eight rooms have spa baths and the largest has a snooker table. Price: £120 to £195, dinner £30-35. Tel: 01439 770397.

The Fox Inn
Lower Oddington, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire

I had the most delicious lamb tagine when my friends and I dined here on a hot summer evening last year. We sat on the terrace in the pretty cottage garden. The pub's been taken over but the chef remains the same. Three country-style bedrooms have French antique beds, two are ensuite and the other has its own shower room. Price: £58 to £85, dinner £23. Continental breakfast. Tel: 01451 870555.

The Plume of Feathers
Mitchell, Cornwall

The five stylish rooms in the refurbished barns at this sixteenth-century coaching inn were modelled on Olga Polizzi's Tresanton Hotel at nearby St Mawes, featuring Farrow & Ball paints, marble-tiled bathrooms and wrought iron beds. An imaginative modern European menu with an Asian twist includes fresh langoustines roasted in chilli and watercress butter and shellfish with tomato and chorizo. Cornish cheeses and oatcakes are served on Cornish slate saved from the renovated barns. Price: £65 to £95, dinner £18 Tel: 01872 510387.

The Bell at Skenfrith
Monmouthshire

DVD players, widescreen TVs and Molton Brown toiletries make the rooms in this inn on the banks of the River Monnow feel more like a posh hotel. All eight rooms offer views of the river or Welsh hills. Have a drink at the long oak bar or settle yourself into a big sofa by the fire before your gastronomic dinner. Feast on Usk valley cannon of lamb, mango chutney, olive crusted potatoes and smoked ratatouille with rosemary jus. Price: £85 to £150, dinner £27. Tel: 01600 750235.

The Griffin Inn
Fletching, near Uckfield, East Sussex

Friends and family have raved about the food at this Grade II listed pub; their only criticism is that the restaurant tables are too close together. Current winter warmers include roasted rump of Sussex lamb with borlotti beans and pepper stew and pan roasted cod on a shrimp and foie gras risotto. Seven of the eight rooms have four-poster beds along with Victorian baths. Four are in the pub, the other four in a restored coach house. Price: £70 to £120, dinner £25. Tel: 01825 722890.