The Marquess of Exeter

The Marquess of Exeter is a pub, restaurant and 17-bedroom hotel in idyllic Lyddington, Rutland. It reopened in May 2009 under the management of Brian Baker, who started his career at Hambleton Hall in the 1970s and later enjoyed stints as personal chef to both Italian fashion designer Valentino and Elton John.

The atmosphere is intimate and warm and there are many original features. Sophistication-meets-rustic is the theme: flagstone floors sit below wooden beams, but there’s also a feeling of elegance. It could be down to the impressive sense of space.

The garden plays host to the pub’s own vegetable patch, chicken shack and small pig pen. In keeping with the Good Life ethos, the kitchen makes its own preserves and fruity booze such as sloe gin, which are often available to buy behind the bar.

The food is of a high quality and alongside the pub’s own produce, the kitchen team work with fresh, locally sourced ingredients. Well executed classics are central to the menu and a hallmark of Brian Baker’s approach is conviviality. He is well known for his sharing plates of ribs of beef and joints of lamb presented at table on a board with a carving knife. “I want people to interact – with these dishes you have to cut it up, share, talk about the food – it just helps get people communicating,” he says.