The Rectory Hotel, Crudwell, Wiltshire

We just had to cancel a long-planned holiday to South Africa at the last minute, and needed to go somewhere in the UK at short notice. Some time on the internet left us with two nights at The Rectory Hotel, followed by two nights in Cheltenham. It was important to have somewhere good to go for dinner, as well as a comfy hotel, and it looked like we could have hit on the perfect place as not only did the hotel have a restaurant with a good reputation, but the owners have relatively recently taken over the local pub as well. One each night then.

We started in the hotel. The menu changes daily, and the chef is particularly keen on local produce, with the menu proclaiming that almost all of the produce, other than fish, is sourced from within a 30 mile radius. The suppliers are named on the menu, and a lot of the vegetables are home grown in part of the pub garden. A good start already.

With the menus and pre-dinner drinks came homemade potato crisps, good olives and rice crackers (a personal favourite). We both went for the same starter, scallops with creamy leeks. The individual elements were very good, but if you ate them together the strong flavour of the leeks completely overpowered the delicate scallops.

I then followed this with chicken leg with mushroom risotto, which was perfectly cooked, retaining a bit of bite. I wish I had room for more than half of the enormous portion! I then followed this with tarragon creme brulee with orange and mint salad. I was slightly dubious about this, but there weren't many options as I'm not eating gluten at the moment. I'm glad I tried it though, as the slight aniseedy flavour worked brilliantly with the sweet creamy brulee. The mint and orange salad was fantastic, and I will definitely be making this through the summer, as it such a perfect end to a meal.

Although there were a couple of things here that could have been improved, all in all this was a well executed meal that we enjoyed very much.

Breakfast the next morning was good too. It annoys me so much how badly breakfast can be done, as it is really a matter of good sourcing. All the elements here were great, and well cooked too, although it could have been a little faster. I really wished I could eat the homemade banana bread too!