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Hotels don’t come any more laid-back than this. Considered by many a ‘gorgeous place’ with its ‘magical garden’ used for drinks in fine weather, Ruth Leigh and Oliver Brown’s charmingly updated 17th-century farmhouse not far from Deal is popular for its delightful rural location and decor pitched agreeably somewhere between rusticity and an upper-crust restaurant with rooms.

The dining room is separate from the main house, found across the lawn in a converted conservatory – unfussy, unpretentious and, we’re happy to report, now fully winterised. The kitchen offers a gently updated version of Italian-accented cooking which, for one mid-winter visitor, meant the richness of chicken liver pâté was beautifully matched by the sweet-sour caramelised notes of agrodolce onions, while a huge, shared T-bone steak (served with ‘immaculate’ béarnaise), was perfectly cooked ‘with just the right funk of a well-aged beast’.

Other well reported meals have produced turbot with white asparagus and a silky, buttery blood-orange sauce, roast chicken with morels, and a perfect bread and butter pudding (blowtorched crust, rich custard). Sunday roasts get the highest praise – ‘almost like home-cooked’ and come with ‘sharing dishes of beautiful vegetables and a jug of gravy’. The wine choices fully live up to the ethos of the cooking, strong on Italy but not exclusively so, opening with a Sicilian red and white by the glass, carafe or bottle.