Matt Tebbutt - perhaps best known for his role as host of Saturday Kitchen - is a chef and television presenter but also, above all else, an avid eater. "It's simply too hard to pick just a handful from all the great restaurants in the UK, and I meet so many brilliant chefs when hosting Saturday Kitchen every week," he tells us. So, it was no mean feat when we asked him to share his favourite places to eat across the country. "I've narrowed it down by picking my top five from a couple of road trips I took with my wife Lisa last year," he says. "Even that choice proved somewhat difficult because we now have such a wealth of great food in this country, and some amazing chefs are creating fantastic dishes with superb, locally sourced seasonal ingredients. But these five were terrific dining experiences and especially memorable for being in such beautiful parts of the country, and all at some of the best hotels I've stayed in, meaning you can just roll into bed after an excellent dinner."

He adds, "The road trips also gave me lots of inspiration for my latest cookbook. We stopped at lots of inns and taverns along the way, sampling classic pub favourites and also discovering some new finds. Matt Tebbutt's Pub Food (Quadrille, August 2024) is full of some old-school favourites from our own pub menu (We ran a pub and restaurant in Monmouthshire for 14 years, until the television career took me out of the kitchen too often to keep it going.) ...and others picked up on trips like these."

"I love the choice we now have in the UK, if you look carefully enough you can eat really well from a simple snack to a pub lunch, through to a special occasion dinner. Food producers, chefs and bakers are all doing great things with the best ingredients."