8 Best Restaurants in Bath and the Cotswolds, England

A ten-minute drive from Stow-on-the-Wold in Nether Westcote, this popular gastro-pub is as cozy and comforting as the name would suggest. The food here is exceptional, and the products are so local that the staff can usually point to the farm from where the meat was sourced. If you want to try as much as possible, opt for the six-course tasting menu (£80). Within the restaurant, a large bay window and terrace offer up views of the valley below, and attention to detail gives the pub some humorous touches such as the saddle-seated stools. If you decide that you are just too comfortable to move, there are four rooms to extend your stay in.

For over 30 years, this sleek space in the basement of the Queensberry Hotel has served top-notch English and Mediterranean dishes, finally being recognized with a Michelin star (the only one in town) in 2018. Head chef Chris Cleghorn creates a seductive, sophisticated selection of four-, six-, and nine-course tasting menus featuring delights such as smoked Devon eel with Isle of Wight tomatoes and tarragon; Cornish monkfish cooked over coal and served with leek and ginger; and raspberries accompanied by sheep curd and lemon verbena. The set-lunch menu (available Friday through Sunday) is a good value at £70. 

The enticing prix-fixe lunch menu attracts diners to this award-winning French restaurant, which is renowned for its signature dishes like onglet steak with tarragon and sea bass with clams and samphire. Chez Dominique is also a great place to stop for afternoon tea or coffee after a walk by nearby Pulteney Weir.

Step away from the center of town to sample the ingenious cuisine that Michelin-trained chef Gordon Jones conjures up in his open kitchen. There is no set menu, but you can choose between seven and nine courses and every dish will be a surprise; there might be smoked eel with maple syrup and purple potatoes, a crisp haggis, roasted turbot with giant raisins and caper dressing, and blackberry sorbet with marinated cucumber. You can also choose a wine flight to accompany the tasting menus. The location is unprepossessing and the decor plain, enlivened by a few antlers and phials of oil, but the service is friendly and unstuffy; if you want to talk with the chef about your food, he will willingly do so. Book well in advance; lunch is easier to reserve than dinner.

With a courtyard at the back and a patio at the front, this chic "restaurant with rooms" is perfect for a light lunch at midday or a full meal in the evening. Menus concentrate on Modern British dishes and change seasonally. The restaurant, in a former furniture factory belonging to local designer George Russell, is modern, airy, and stylish. The less expensive fixed-price menu (£28 for two courses) is just as tempting, and there's also an attached fish-and-chips shop. You can spend the night in the very sleek, boutique-style rooms upstairs.

A 15th-century inn just five minutes from Lacock Abbey, Sign of the Angel serves traditional food in a cozy and intimate setting. Some dishes, such as the roast loin of beef with Yorkshire pudding or the seasonal pie of the day are as traditional as the decor, but modern touches—orange butter sauce, for instance—adds an extra dimension. Enjoy the seasonal dish of the day for lunch or relax in the garden with a cream tea. When you creak open the heavy door and are greeted by the hearty fire in the huge chimney, you could be forgiven for thinking that you stepped back a few centuries. Upstairs are five beautifully rustic rooms in which to stay.

Delicious Indian dishes are the main draw, but the three magnificent glass domes of the large Georgian interior and the arresting South Asian murals mean that a meal at this award-winning restaurant becomes an event. Specialties of the house include mughlai chicken (flavored with egg, ginger, and garlic and fried in a sauce of yogurt, coconut, and poppy seeds) and salmon bhaja (panfried with Bengali spices and served with diced potatoes).

Housed in the former ballroom of Queen’s Hotel, Victoria’s brings a stylish twist to contemporary British cooking. The two-course lunch menu (£22) is particularly good value.