The Pig Hotels are renowned for their home-grown shabby chic approach to hosting, branding themselves as a ‘restaurant with rooms’. The Pig in Brockenhurst was their first site to open, however, they quickly gained popularity and opened many more across the UK, totalling eight this year.

We visited The Pig near Bath, a Grade II listed country house tucked into the Mendip Hills in Somerset, where we stayed for two nights. The restaurant, located in the conservatory, had a cosy and informal atmosphere. We had to try The Pig’s iconic 25-mile menu, featured in all their locations.

The 25-mile menu is based around their home-grown mantra where they pledge that everything guests eat is either farmed on site or arrives from less than 25-miles away. This makes the menu at each hotel unique and allows guests to rest easy knowing they support local farmers.

Before our dinner, we sat in front of the fire and enjoyed cocktails from the bar with a brilliant atmosphere. We also played snooker in the drawing room, which is available for guests to use at their leisure.

For starters we had pan-fried mackerel fillet with fennel and parsley mayonnaise and the pickled squash and honey soup – picked that morning from the garden!  We both then enjoyed beautifully cooked sirloin steaks for our main course, with thrice cooked chips.

Then came the most difficult choice – dessert! We both shared an apple and blackberry crumble and a beehive honey syllabub, both from the surrounding gardens.