The Boar's Head - Wantage

The Boar's Head at Ardington near Wantage puts on a thoroughly modern 'rustic' look with its pristine black-and-white half-timbered façade, although it actually dates back more than 150 years. A genteel watering hole in a decidedly affluent village, it still behaves like a local pub complete with a dartboard in the bar and some rarely seen local beers on handpump.

Drinkers can tuck into lunchtime baguettes and one-dish meals from a blackboard menu that might run from black pudding and poached salad to bread-and-butter pudding. By contrast, the food in the restaurant has noticeably more ambition and refinement.

Chef Bruce Buchan is well known as an ardent fan of seafood and he procures regular supplies from Cornwall: the results might include tranche of cod niçoise with gazpacho, sea bass in pastry with girolles and tomato butter or a mixed ragoût with French beans and saffron sauce. Other produce is sourced locally, witness herb-crusted rack of spring lamb with minted pea risotto or venison with fondant potato and mustard sauce. Soufflés are an ever-popular finale (try the hot pistachio version with iced chocolate cream) and the wine list looks to France for much of its inspiration.