The Ebrington Arms
An award-winning 17th-century inn that brews its own Yubby ale, with chef-led cooking and five rooms above.
An award-winning 17th-century inn that brews its own Yubby ale, with chef-led cooking and five rooms above.
There are plenty of good pubs in this part of the Cotswolds, but the Ebrington Arms sits in a category of its own. It is a 17th-century stone inn on May Lane in Ebrington, a quiet village just east of Chipping Campden that the locals have long called Yubberton, which is why the pub answers just as happily to “the Yubby”. The couple who run it liked the idea of pouring something you could not get anywhere else, so they started brewing their own beer, and the Yubby range now sits proudly on the bar alongside a rotating cast of guest ales. It is the sort of detail that tells you everything about the place before the food even arrives.
And the food is very good indeed. The kitchen has held two AA Rosettes for years now, one of only a handful of inns in the county to manage it, yet nothing about the room feels stiff or ceremonial. The menu changes with the seasons and leans on proper country ingredients: game in autumn, lamb in spring, vegetables that taste like they were pulled from the ground that morning. In winter there are open fires and low beams to fold into; in summer a landscaped terrace and garden that back straight onto rolling pasture, where you can sit with a glass of something cold and listen to more or less nothing. We tend to treat it as a proper evening out rather than a quick weeknight supper, because it deserves the occasion.
Why we send people hereAward-winning gets said about a lot of pubs, but this one has the shelf to back it up. Between the food, the beer and the welcome, it is the address we reach for when we want a meal out that feels like a small event.
It is around forty minutes from Well Cottage, out past Chipping Campden and down the lanes to Ebrington, which puts it a little further afield than our regular haunts. That distance is part of the appeal: it turns a supper into a proper outing, and the drive home through dark, quiet countryside is half the pleasure. The kitchen keeps sensible pub hours with lunch and dinner served through the week, so it is worth booking ahead, especially at weekends and in high summer when the garden fills up. If you would rather make a night of it, the rooms above mean nobody has to drive at all.
Because it sits at this end of the north Cotswolds, the Ebrington Arms pairs neatly with a day out rather than a standalone trip. Two of the finest gardens in the country are on its doorstep: Hidcote and Kiftsgate Court Gardens face each other across the lane at nearby Mickleton, and either makes a lovely afternoon before an early dinner. If you want a second pub in the same mould, The Howard Arms on the green at Ilmington is cut from similar cloth and only a short drive away. For the wider picture, our guide to eating and drinking in the area runs from village pubs to farm-to-table restaurants and everything in between.
“Order whatever the kitchen is most excited about that day, and start with a pint of the Yubby. You won't be disappointed.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.