Dewars Restaurant and Rooms

Dewars Restaurant and Rooms is a smart, recently refurbished restaurant with rooms in the North Yorkshire village of Kirby Misperton, and it manages something fairly rare: proper dog-friendly bedrooms at a property whose main business is serious food. The rooms are arranged around a heated outdoor pool, and the dog-friendly ones sit right on the poolside, which makes for an unusually relaxed arrival at the end of a long drive.

The house rule guests describe is a sensible one. Dogs are not taken into the restaurant, but they are welcome in the bar and you can eat there instead, so nobody has to choose between dinner and the dog. Staff draw consistent praise from dog owners, and the property is used repeatedly by people breaking a longer journey north, which tells you how easy it is to arrive here with a dog in tow.

Kirby Misperton makes a good touring base for the North York Moors and the coast beyond, with easy parking on site, EV chargers and a village setting quiet enough for a last walk before bed. Dinner is the other reason to book: the dining room is an orangery-style conservatory looking out over the village church, and the food is the thing guests praise most, across the board.

One caveat worth budgeting for. The pet supplement is steep - £30 per dog, per night, with one dog per booking - so on anything longer than a night or two it becomes a real line on the bill. Bar service can also be slow in the evening, even once an order is in. Set against a genuinely comfortable room, a heated pool and food this good, it holds a 4.4/5 paw rating.