FOOD critic Jay Rayner has hailed a meal he ate in the Cotswolds as one of the best of 2021.

Rayner has eaten at some of the top restaurants in the country, but when he came to list his top restaurant experiences of the year, he said the Double Red Duke at Bampton near Lechlade immediately sprang to mind.

Writing in The Observer on December 26, the critic, who is also a guest judge on Masterchef, said he "loved the butch, gutsy cooking at the Double Red Duke".

He went on to single out the restaurant's devilled kidneys for particular praise.

He wrote: "I made a list of the past year’s top restaurant experiences recently and the first three that came to mind were all outside London.

"I loved the butch, gutsy cooking at the Double Red Duke, with its glossily sauced devilled kidneys and its fat scallops under drifts of garlicky crumbs."

Devilled kidneys is currently on the Double Red Duke's breakfast and mains menus, at £8.

Devilled kidneys is a Victorian British breakfast dish consisting of lamb's kidneys cooked in a spicy sauce, containing Worcestershire sauce, mustard, butter, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper.

The dish was popular on the Victorian British breakfast table and then, during the Edwardian era, it became a staple on the menu in gentlemen's clubs. Contemporarily it tends to be served as a supper dish.

The Double Red Duke hotel opened in the picturesque village of Clanfield, near Bampton, last year.

A 17th-century coaching inn, with 19 rooms and a contemporary restaurant, it is part of the Country Creatures family of pubs and inns, with other establishments including The Chequers in Churchill, and The Swan in Ascott-under-Wychwood.

For further details see: countrycreatures.com/double-red-duke

Jay Rayner also presents BBC Radio Four's The Kitchen Cabinet.