With its “great good, superb service and smart ambience”, fans reckon that Alec’s is “very much London fine-dining… but not in London”. What was the Green Man pub, some three miles outside Brentwood, has been carefully restored by Essex restaurateur Alec Smith, who has created an atmospheric venue with spiral staircases, spacious dining rooms and roaring fires in winter – plus an alfresco space for summer days. The kitchen cherry-picks from the world’s cuisines for an international menu that majors on seafood – think crab ravioli with asparagus, tomato and lemon dressing, roast turbot on samphire with hollandaise or steamed wild sea bass with ginger and soy. There are also plenty of “perfectly executed” dishes for meat eaters, from veal milanese to variations on the surf ‘n’ turf theme, while desserts such as jam sponge pudding and caramel cheesecake are built for comfort. Meanwhile, Champagne cocktails go down a storm with the sophisticates in the lounge.