The Zebra Riding Club

The Zebra Riding Club – the tale goes – is named so because it’s housed in the ex-stables of a stately home where the lady of the manor used to like her carriage pulled by zebras. While the zebras may long since have left, the playful atmosphere prevails.

Bouncy staff serve creative cocktails in a convivial gabled room packed full of arty types, and there are dried flowers and natural fabrics everywhere to remind you that you’re dining in the presence of one of the hippest hotels to open recently.

Heading up the kitchen is renowned Irish chef Robin Gill, whose unfussy approach to food and flavours has seen him win loyal fans. At The Zebra Riding Club this ethos prevails, with seasonal, local produce championed. Guests can expect a set menu of spirited plates, which admittedly can feel overwhelming (you know, do I have what it takes to make it to the end?). Happily, the kitchen team has balanced light dishes with indulgent treats, and expertly honed portion sizes so that we left with a real sense of satisfaction from finishing everything on the table - and bigger eaters can add seafood and cheese courses, should they wish.

Small sharing serves kickstart things with crunchy green pickled tomatoes contrasting with salty bresaola and bite-sized soft pieces of ox reuben topped with a funky house-made sauerkraut. A star of the show was a fairly mundane sounding grains, corn and egg concoction which came in individual rough pottery bowls and in actuality was a smoky, salty Japanese-style broth peppered with sweet corn kernels and chewy heritage grains topped with a jammy marinaded egg. It was the type of thing you wish you could ask for the recipe of.

Mains were familiar and comforting with plates of salt marsh lambs and olive-oil covered beans accompanied by sharing serves of a punchy chicory salad, herby roast potatoes served in their sizzling cast-iron pan and the most amazing richly fragrant lamb stew which feels like it’s come from years of family tradition. This is happy, fun feel-good food at its best and we're already planning an excuse to go back.

Chef Robin Gill seems unstoppable with his growing portfolio of restaurants, which until now have all found their home in London. The Zebra Riding Club however is based just outside the capital and promises something the others can’t, the lure of countryside surrounds.

Found at Birch – a new country house hotel concept from a group of creatives hoping to provide a modern escape from city life – The Zebra Riding Club is housed within the property’s former stables and can seat 70 covers at clusters of cosy tables. As with much of Gill’s cooking, the menu here develops and changes with the seasons. Ingredients come from the surrounding woodland and kitchen gardens where possible and plates are kept simple with a focus on deliberate unfussiness. A mainstay of the menu is a seafood platter that is updated from time to time in line with what’s best in the moment and comes with three different homemade condiments. Elsewhere there are sharing feasts with centrepieces like spring lamb that are perfect for enjoying with groups of friends or family.

The set menu comes in at £48 per person and includes a selection of snacks, small plates ‘from the coop’, a choice of mains and pudding. There’s also the option to add a seafood and cheese course, should you fancy indulging in some of the UK’s best small suppliers’ produce.

A long and varied wine list is preceded by a single choice of beer and a carefully selected run of cocktails. A Pine & Soda, for instance, is mixed with a combination of vodka, lemon balm, pine bitters, lemon and sod; while a Garden Sour is gin based with notes of cucumber, shiso and sorel for a pleasingly tart precursor to your meal.

Both hotel guests and day visitors are able to book the restaurant, and it is open throughout the day for lunch or dinner.