Cool Places
The Royal Oak
Littlefield Green near Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 3JN
If you were driving along the B3024 without knowing better, you wouldn't give the Royal Oak a second glance. A whitewashed highway tavern-with-car park, it's pretty unassuming from the outside, offering no clues that this is one of a handful of Michelin-starred pubs in the country. Run by Nick Parkinson, the son of chat show doyen Sir Michael, it's a traditional English pub, with a chic beer garden off to one side, but what sets it apart is the cooking. Chef Dominic Chapman's menu is an appetising selection of seasonal English dishes with witty flourishes: try melt-in-the-mouth scotch eggs for starters, lasagne of rabbit with wild mushrooms and chervil for mains, and a Yorkshire rhubarb trifle for pud. Unpretentious, robust pleasure.
