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What exactly is a "restaurant with rooms", and what makes it different from the "rooms with a restaurant", otherwise known as a small country house hotel? "The boundaries are blurring," says Elizabeth Carter, the new consultant editor of The Good Food Guide, "but the restaurant has to be the reason for going - and it must have rooms, so you can hit the wine list and stay the night in comfort."
Such criteria are met by the Horn of Plenty in Gulworthy, Devon, where Peter Gorton turns out such Blumenthal-esque creations as
roast loin of Devonshire lamb with wild-mushroom salsa, basil- flavoured mash, red wine and garlic froth. On its website, though, the place is described as "a luxury hotel with an award-winning restaurant" - so it's not a restaurant with rooms at all. The reason, Carter says, is that it has a lounge for residents: "The first restaurants with rooms didn't offer the facilities of a small hotel. They just had a restaurant and a bar, then you'd go upstairs to your room. All the detail went into the bedrooms, which is why they became popular."
Bruton House in Somerset is a classic example of the genre. "You open the front door and you're in the dining room," says Carter, "then up some stairs and there are two bedrooms, and that's more or less it, but it has been beautifully done by the young owners."
L'Enclume in Cumbria is a classic with a twist. Simon Rogan's Michelin-starred cooking is the reason for going, but the accommodation has spread from the converted blacksmith's itself (the word enclume means anvil) throughout the village of Cartmel. Initially there were seven rooms adjoining the restaurant, some with furnishings and textiles by Zoffany and Beaumont & Fletcher, plus four more in L'Enclume House, a short stroll away. This month, two further luxury suites will open above the Anthemion antique shop that provides the art and furniture for L'Enclume. It's not so much a restaurant with rooms, more a Rogan empire.
But for some, this rarefied realm of French furnishings and cryptically named dishes ("whim 01", "razor role reversal", "surrealists nitro slammer" - all genuine items on Rogan's menu) is too OTT and reminiscent of the over-designed fine-dining of...