Michelin's Gastronomic Accolade for English Pubs

It is of course the pub fare and cheer that draws me, not Al Jolson's red, red robin. And the Fox Inn, as Harry Richie, London Evening Standard's restaurant critic succinctly noted, is no mere pub, but a five-star restaurant wearing pub camouflage.

The trouble with five-star restaurants in any capital city that I visit is that you need to have a quiet word with your bank manager before entering their portals and to say a prayer before you peruse the wine list. Not at the Fox in Lower Oddington!

My lady and I dined in style under candlelight on our overnight stay in March, enjoying a well prepared and presented three course dinner, with a fine bottle of wine for £60. It would in fact have been difficult to spend more. We could have dined excellently for less but good day at the races was worth a celebration.

The wine list is memorable for its choice and reasonable prices. I was particularly impressed by the inclusion of a White and a couple of Reds from Tasmania. 'Tazzie' now produces some interesting wines since viticulture took off some 30 years ago with establishment of Pipers Brook vineyard in the north of the island and there are now over 60 vineyards.

I have never seen Tasmanian wines outside Tasmania and I suspect that to all but a lucky few who have visited 'God's Little Island', they are an unknown quantity. My chum in Hobart insists they know a good thing when they see one and keep it all for themselves! Perhaps the Ray Pearce, the pub's Australian chef, knows an English wine merchant who ships it over. I must ask him on our next visit.

Our bedroom with ensuite bath and shower, impressive Louis XV bed and chaise longue overlooked the Inn's cottage garden and was the most expensive of the pub's three rooms, costing us £95 per night inclusive of breakfast and taxes. We stayed in fact two nights, giving ourselves a day to look at the village's 11th century church with its notable medieval wall paintings which survived the whitewash of the Reformation and then explore nearby Stow-in-the-Wold and visit some mouth-watering Cotswolds antiques shops before returning to London.

The Fox Inn continues to do an admirable job in fulfilling its original purpose as the 'heart' of the village, dispensing beer to the locals. The brew is noteworthy; an award winning cask bitter from Hook Norton, the local independent family brewery. The landlord also shows a regularly changed guest beer.