READY? SET MENU? GO!

Delegate decision making to the experts - say feed me, thrill me. Rather than poring over menus, opting for a great-value set menu or a blow-out tasting experience allows you to kick back and relax, confident that incredible food will follow

- TONY NAYLOR

NEW WAVE OMAKASE MAYHA, LONDON

Japanese omakase dining (where guests sit at a kitchen counter, watching highly trained chefs create tasting menu dishes in front of them), tends to the hushed and reverential. We love the looser vibe created by chefs Jurek Wasio and Yuichi Nakaya at Marylebone 11-seater, Mayha. The duo play their favourite music and offer chatty insight on dishes. Diners, says Jurek, should "feel like they're visiting us at home". Fine UK seasonal produce is blended with key imports (bamboo shoot, shiso buds, sansho pepper), across a menu of ornate sushi, sashimi and dishes such as wagyu beef cheek donburi, mackerel with fig and sesame, or sparkling pine ice cream.  Lunch £100; dinner £220; mayhalondon.com

GROWING FORCE CROCADON, ST MELLION, CORNWALL

Chef Dan Cox (ex-L'Enclume, Fera) spent five years turning Crocadon Farm into a hub of sustainable self-sufficiency before, in February, launching its eponymous restaurant. Orchards, a microbrewery, rare-breed animals, flour from heritage grains, even tableware from its own ceramics studio, Crocadon produces (almost) everything on site. Tasting menus are central to this vision, says Dan: "We want to build an experience around what is best on the farm at that moment. Right now, that may mean asparagus in butter and spring herbs or artichokes grilled in aged sheep fat, with elderflowers and dry-aged Romney lamb: "With an à la carte menu, there'd be wastage and harvesting our produce to sit in the fridge would go against everything we set out to achieve." From £65pp; crocadon.farm

STUNNING TREAT HIDE AND FOX, SALTWOOD, KENT