Sebastians Hotel - Oswestry

From the outside, Sebastians looks like an archetypal English provincial tea shop, and the chintzy interior with its beams, wood panelling and uneven floors serves to reinforce first impressions. In fact, Mark Sebastian Fisher and his wife run this sixteenth-century building as a congenial little hotel and restaurant with a pronounced Gallic accent.

Menus are written in French with English translations and the four-course repertoire changes each month to take account of the seasons and the market. Dinner always begins with a soup (perhaps leek and potato with chives) before a choice of three starters (seared scallops on carrot fritters, for example). A sorbet is offered ahead of main courses ranging from roast loin of lamb on a cassoulet of vegetables to fillet of cod with spinach and pine nuts glazed with sweet pepper hollandaise.

To finish, there are desserts such as chocolate and raspberry 'baguette-and-butter' pudding with bitter chocolate sorbet, or you might prefer a plate of French cheeses with warm Welsh rarebit, grape chutney and home-baked bread. France naturally holds sway on the carefully chosen wine list, with useful back-up from Italy, California and elsewhere.