The UK’s best kept secrets: 6 underrated destinations to visit this summer

The local Ormskirk speciality of gingerbread is taken very seriously: there’s even an annual festival in the town centre (taking place this year on 13 July). You can also sample the gingerbread at Ormskirk market every Thursday and Saturday, along with other Lancashire produce from the market’s 100 stalls.

Aughton is home to the UK’s newest three-Michelin-starred restaurant Moor Hall. Chef Mark Birchall uses local produce, some grown in the restaurant’s beautifully maintained kitchen gardens, to create complex, beguiling tasting menus. For a more casual meal, head to Birchall’s one-Michelin-starred The Barn just across from the main building. Stay over in one of fourteen rooms including the recently opened luxurious garden rooms.

In the village centre, chef Tim Allen runs the Michelin-starred sō-lō. The converted village pub has been elegantly fitted out and provides the perfect backdrop for Allen’s sophisticated combination of local produce, global influences and craft skills that result in dishes such as maple salt baked celeriac with malted cream and lacto truffle buttermilk.

Bruton, Somerset

For art lovers

Nestled among the Somerset hills, the pretty rural market town of Bruton in Somerset has been called ‘the new Notting Hill’ due to the number of celebrities who have bought second homes there. It’s easy to see the attraction with its high street lined with boutique shops, cafes and restaurants. It’s also known as a cultural centre with a number of art galleries, the most prominent of which is Hauser & Wirth. Set just outside the town centre on a converted farmstead, the site is also home to Da Costa Italian Restaurant, Roth Bar and a farm shop.

Bruton is as well served for fine food as it is for fine art. In the town centre you’ll find Briar, an intimate farm-to-table restaurant that’s part of Number One Bruton boutique hotel run by ex-River Cottage chef Sam Loma, and At The Chapel, a boutique hotel and restaurant set in a beautifully converted chapel serving a Med-inspired menu that might include spiced crab cannelloni with seafood bisque. A short taxi ride away, celebrated chef Merlin Lebron Johnson runs the Michelin-starred Osip restaurant with rooms in a converted country pub, where he serves a daily-changing tasting menu of hyper-local dishes such as white asparagus, lemon, scallop and hazelnuts.

Just north of Bruton is Westcombe Dairy, where you can sample award-winning cheeses including Westcombe Cheddar and Somerset Ricotta at the dairy’s shop, as well as Woodshedding beers brewed on site and served in the beer hall.

Vale of Glamorgan

For a coastal break

Just a short train ride from Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan in the south east of Wales is a beautiful coastal destination that provides the opportunity for both outdoor adventures and gastronomic experiences. Download the Wales Coast Path app to help you navigate the 50 miles of coastal walking paths where you can discover cliff views, ancient churches and nature reserves. Relax in Môr A Sawna, a wood-fired sauna that overlooks the stunning Jackson’s Bay near Barry, or, if you’re feeling brave, meet the sunrise and join the Dawnstalkers Sea Swim Club by Penarth Pier for a bracing dip in the Bristol Channel.

Head to Welsh-born chef Bryn Williams’ nearby Touring Club for a restorative breakfast of miso roasted mushrooms, tahini yoghurt and toasted sourdough. Open all day, the restaurant has been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand for dishes such as confit duck leg, lime glaze and pickled red cabbage. In Aberthin in the heart of the Vale, the Hare and Hounds gastropub has won rave reviews in the national press for its rustic St John-style nose-to-tail ethos, exemplified by lamb sweetbreads with lamb bacon and asparagus.

Stay at Llanerch Vineyard near Pontyclun, the UK’s first vineyard hotel, where you can tour the vineyard, taste the wines and dine at Roots restaurant that overlooks the vines. At the nearby Grade I listed Hensol Castle Distillery you can craft your own Welsh gin in their 400-year-old distillery.

Folkestone

For a sophisticated seaside break

Between them, neighbouring Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe provide everything you could want from a food and culture-focused seaside break. Highlights of Folkestone’s year-round roster of creative art events includes the Folkestone Triennial from July to October 2025 that will bring international fine art to the town, while the annual Folkestone Book Festival will be staged in November.

Rent a luxurious seafront holiday beach house from Shoreline, then head to Folkestone’s Sunny Sands beach for some traditional family-friendly seaside. Further west along the coast near Hythe, discover the beautiful sand and shingle Dymchurch Beach which is popular with kite surfers and swimmers.

Folkestone is famous for its seafood and there’s nowhere better to sample some than at the beachside Little Rock. Sit on the terrace and enjoy dressed Folkestone crab with brown crab ketchup. Stroll along the nearby Harbour Arm and explore the homeware, art and vintage clothes traders, then stop for a glass of fizz at the The Lighthouse Champagne Bar. In neighbouring Sandgate, wine shop and tasting room John Dory is a modern interpretation of a wine bar. Run by renowned wine expert Zerren Wilson, expect a list of modern and traditional bottles alongside a concise menu of globally inspired food.

In Hythe, smart neighbourhood restaurant Hide and Fox has recently been awarded two Michelin stars for its five and eight-course tasting menus that celebrate seasonal produce in dishes such as East Kent lamb with lettuce, smoked anchovy, Parmesan and wild garlic.

Fife

For a food and drink tour

Lying between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay, the region of Fife is dotted with rich farmland and fishing villages. With so much great produce on its doorstep, it makes the ideal destination for a food and drink tour.

In recent years, Fife has revived its ancient tradition of whisky making. Enjoy a distillery tour and tasting at Lindores Abbey Distillery in Newburgh, where production restarted in 2017 after a break of over 500 years. Sample whiskies from Fife and across Scotland at The Ship Inn in Elie as you take in the beautiful views across the bay.

St Andrews in east Fife is most famous as the spiritual home of golf, but it’s also a foodie hub. The Seafood Ristorante occupies a cantilevered steel and glass cube that offers dramatic sea shore views and serves daily delivered local seafood, including Anstruther lobster raviolo with spiced shellfish bisque. At Haar, a restaurant with rooms, chef Dean Banks serves a tasting menu of modern and precise dishes that highlight local seafood, such as trout pastrami served in a pastry cone with crème fraiche and dill. At the more casual Dune, Banks serves lobster crumpets and octopus hotdogs.

But Fife is not just about seafood. At the nearby Bowhouse monthly weekend market, you’ll find everything from Scottish salami from East Coast Cured to Anster cheese from St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese. A few miles inland, there’s devilled duck offal flatbread & pickled chilli and braised balcaskie mutton on the menu of the renowned gastropub The Kinneuchar Inn.

Norfolk Coast

For nature lovers

Stretching from The Wash in the West, to Sea Palling in the East, the Norfolk Coast National Landscape encompasses nature reserves, conservation sites and stunning beaches. Take a sea safari from Hunstanton with Searles Sea Tours to get up close to one of the many seal colonies in The Wash. The open marshland and expansive beaches of Cley and Salthouse Marshes make it one of the county’s most popular birdwatching sites, where you might spot anything from an avocet to a reed warbler.

Head to the seaside town of Cromer for the must-try local speciality, Cromer crab. At celebrity chef Galton Blackiston’s No 1 Cromer you can feast on Cromer crab linguine with shellfish bisque or classic fish and chips while taking in panoramic views of the pier and esplanade. Blackiston also puts local seafood, along with foraged ingredients and those grown in his own kitchen garden, on his tasting menus at the Michelin-starred Morston Hall restaurant with rooms.

Local produce is also on the tasting menu at Meadowsweet restaurant with rooms in Holt. Set in a beautifully restored Georgian townhouse, dishes draw on owners Greg Anderson and Rebecca Williams’ global travels and might include shrimp with pink grapefruit, pumpkin and xo sauce.

Holt is also home to the monthly Holt Sunday Market where you can sample local food and drink, including Cobble Hill Wine made in Burham Market, chocolate from Cocoa Collective and street food from traders, including Amma’s Kitchen that serves Sri Lankan dishes such as chicken kotthu roti.

Lewes

For beer lovers

Just a few miles east of busy Brighton, you’ll find the charming historic market town of Lewes. Famous as the setting for the anarchic Lewes Bonfire celebrations, the rest of the year it makes an idyllic setting for a cultured but beer-fuelled gastronomic break.

The town has history in spades. Picnic in the gardens of the 950-year-old Lewes Castle and Museum, then enjoy panoramic views of the Sussex countryside from the keep. Visit the fascinating 15th-century Anne of Cleves House and the idyllic 16th-century Southover Grange Gardens.

Lewes is also home to Harvey’s, the oldest independent brewery in Sussex, where you can take a tour and enjoy a tutored tasting of the cask beers. Fans of craft beer will love the quirky and atmospheric 200-year-old Snowdrop Inn with more than a dozen selections on tap. The recently refurbished 16th-century White Heart Inn is now one of the town’s most stylish places to drink and eat, while still retaining many of the inn’s original features. Stay over in one of the 23 comfortable and chic rooms. By contrast, Beak Brewery is the most recent beer-related addition to the town. Opened in 2020, you can visit the brewery’s popular al fresco tap room to sample their signature IPA.

In recent years, Lewes’s restaurant has taken off. The Michelin guide recently awarded a Bib Gourmand to Dill where chef Dan Cropper serves a regularly changing electric menu of seasonal small plates such as glazed ox tongue crumpet. At Squisito, the homemade pasta dishes might include Crown Prince pumpkin and Aleppo chilli raviolo. For great sandwiches made with some of the best sourdough in the county, head to The Flint Owl Bakery.

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