2 Best Restaurants in The South, England

Perched on a bluff overlooking sandy Burton Beach, this airy restaurant in a hamlet at the western end of Chesil Beach specializes in freshly caught seafood and locally raised meat and produce. The short but focused menu includes dishes like grilled Dorset Blue lobster with garlic and samphire or fillet of turbot with braised artichokes and peas. It's a set menu on weekdays, but à la carte is available on weekends. Bar food is served when the restaurant is closed, and there's an afternoon tea. The restaurant is in a Victorian villa remodeled to evoke a chic 1920s feel, and the tables outside on the terrace have fabulous views across Lyme Bay. There are also nine light-filled bedrooms with views upstairs. The restaurant is 7 miles northwest of Abbotsbury, near Bridport, via B3157. 

Oak-beamed ceilings, exposed stone walls, and inglenook fireplaces add to the charm of this restaurant in a 300-year-old former shepherd's cottage across the road from where Thomas Hardy went to school. It specializes in daily-changing, two- or three-course set menus featuring superior French-influenced cooking using locally sourced produce, with dishes like Portland crab cocktail on a crumpet, Maiden Castle pressed lamb with kale pesto, and sticky (meaning coated with a sticky sauce) beef brisket. There's also a Sunday lunch and afternoon tea. Eight comfortable bedrooms are available in an extension overlooking gardens or fields. Lower Bockhampton is signposted off the A35, 1½ miles east of Dorchester.