Bourton-on-the-Hill climbs steeply off the A44, and right at the top sits this handsome Grade II listed inn. The cooking has earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand, the garden drops away to long valley views, and the welcome is the kind that makes you want to cancel your plans and stay the night.
The Horse and Groom is the sort of place you drive to once and then keep finding reasons to go back. It sits in a handsome honey-stone building at the crest of the hill, looking out across the north Cotswold escarpment. Inside, flagstone floors and open fires set the tone, but nothing about it feels stagey or overwrought. The menu changes with the seasons and leans on good British ingredients treated simply: game in winter, asparagus in spring, always a well-chosen cut of meat and a fish dish that surprises. The Bib Gourmand is well deserved. Dogs are welcome throughout, which makes it a natural stop on longer walks.
There are five rooms upstairs if you fancy making an evening of it, though from the cottage it's only about a 25-minute drive, so a leisurely supper and home to bed works just as well. In summer the garden is the real draw: a big, sloping lawn with tables dotted across it and that wide view south across the fields. Book ahead for weekend evenings, particularly in high season. Weekday lunches tend to be quieter, and there's something rather wonderful about a slow Tuesday lunch here with nowhere else to be.
“Proper food, proper pub, proper view. We always end up staying longer than we planned.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.