In 1991 David Eyre and Mike Belben decided to open their own eating place. Unable to afford a restaurant, they bought a run-down pub in London, furnishing it with battered sofas and serving gutsy, southern Mediterranean food. An open kitchen and a blackboard listing the day’s menu made the place feel spontaneous and exciting.

The Eagle was an instant hit. Since then “gastropubs” have opened up all over Britain and the original brand of shabby-chic is now often eschewed for a sleeker formula. But the emphasis on friendly surroundings and good ingredients remains.

Gastropubs are as different from each other as restaurants are. From the Michelin-starred Stagg Inn in Herefordshire to the more down-to-earth charms of The Bull in Herefordshire, no two are alike. Yet whether the cooking is simple or sophisticated, a gastropub is basically a place in which you can have a drink, but which also serves great food.

THE WEST COUNTRY

The Drewe Arms,
Broadhembury, Devon
(01404 841267)
You could spend ages just examining the objects here - little flags, old baskets, a teetering ceramic clock, even a big antique wooden horse on wheels - and looking at the walls, which are covered in Beryl Cook prints, modern seascapes, and fish in every material under the sun. Wood, iron, pottery, papier-mâché: you name it and a sea creature fashioned from it will swim into view.

Owner Kerstin Burge is Swedish, and the Drewe Arms feels more like a Scandinavian country restaurant than a British boozer, despite the snug bar and beer from the nearby Otter Brewery. The menu is as fish-focused as the decor. They offer Scandinavian classics such as gravlax and cured herring, as well as Mediterranean, French and British fish dishes such as seared salmon with samphire, sea bream with orange and chilli, or turbot with hollandaise.

The food here is unfussy, but few places can turn out a perfectly cooked bit of Dover sole or mouth-puckering herring with a glass of ice-cold aquavit like they do at the Drewe Arms.

The Fox Inn,
Corscombe, Dorset
(01935 891330)
With its clotted-cream coloured walls, thatched roof and roses around the door, the Fox Inn looks too pretty to be real. As treacle tarts and braised lamb shanks are whipped out of the Aga, you feel as though you’re eating in someone’s home.

The Roseland Inn,
Philleigh, Cornwall
(01872 580254)
Hidden among winding hedgerows on the sleepy Roseland peninsula, this whitewashed 16th-century inn is what you dream of finding. The food is superior pub grub, such as local smoked haddock topped with Cornish Yarg.

The Angel,
Hindon, Wiltshire
(01747 820696)
A Georgian coach house, with a cobbled courtyard where fairy lights are strung through the trees, The Angel is enchanting. You can dine in the bar-room, with its blood-red walls and brass candlesticks, on excellent beer-battered fish with chips and crushed peas.

THE SOUTH

The Greyhound,
31 High Street, Stockbridge, Hampshire
(01264 810833)
The chef here, Darron Bunn, came from London and was quite prepared for his romantic notions of cooking in the country to be dashed, “But it’s the best move I ever made,” he says.

Darron and the owner, Barry Skarin, both have frighteningly impressive CVs - a veritable roll call of Nicos and Marcos and Schragers - but got fed up with the torturous hours and the sameness of luxury London restaurants, and so opted to work in a simpler environment.

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