The Olive Branch

With its unusual name, you'd think it would be a smart restaurant, not a pub; in fact its very much the latter. The Olive Branch is a pretty Georgian house attached to a charmingly rustic pub in a neat stone village. Michelin recommended and Good Pub Guide County Dining Pub of the Year, The Olive Branch serves gourmet food that's also delightfully unpretentious (you might find roast pumpkin bread, smoked haddock chowder, chicken and mushroom pie), much of it produced in the garden. The six recently refurbished rooms are fetchingly and individually decorated most with roll top baths and rain showers. The dining room is a homely, slightly rickety mix of books, blackboards, wine bottles, settles, dressers, ceiling high logs, pine tables and standard lamps. In warm weather you can order one of the inn's imaginatively stocked picnic baskets and enjoy a walk down the joyous parade of topiary that is the Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue, just a mile away.