Gate Inn

Emphasis on imaginative food but with local beers and thoughtful wines, a pubby atmosphere, and warm welcome from helpful staff

If you're on the M6 and fancy a civilised break, then you'd be hard pushed to find a better place to take one than this immaculately kept 17th-c inn. Of course many customers are here to enjoy the highly thought of food but there is a proper bar of charming antiquity and you can be sure of a friendly welcome. The cosy bar has country pine and dark wood furniture, lots of brasses on the beams, church candles on all the tables and a good log fire in the attractive stone inglenook. Hesket Newmarket Doris's 90th Birthday Ale, Keswick Thirst Run, and a changing beer from Tirril on handpump, a dozen wines by the glass, quite a few malt whiskies, and Weston's Old Rosie cider. Two restaurant areas have oak floors, panelled oak walls and heavy beams; piped music. There are seats on the terrace and in the garden.

At lunchtime, the excellent food includes sandwiches, soup, a platter of fish, cheese and meat with chutney and pickles, queens scallops marinated in citrus juices, vodka, tomatoes and red onion, beer-battered fresh fish, mushroom, pea and broad bean risotto, mutton and black pudding hotpot, and venison burger with fig and elderflower relish, with evening dishes like curried crab chowder, steamed scottish mussels, smoked chicken and tiger prawn with wild mushrooms, chilli hazelnuts and egg noodles, Galloway beef fillet in tamari marinade with a warm salad of beetroot, chard and courgette, pork belly with a warm salad of pak choi, beansprouts and sugar snap and spring onion sauce, and puddings like marmalade cheesecake with fresh berry compote and chantilly cream and sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and home-made vanilla ice-cream.