The Crown Amersham

Because you haven’t always got time to nip off to the Lake District, or Scotland, or Spain, it’s good to know you’ve got options just outside the M25. The Crown, in Amersham, is probably best known for its cameo in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but a combination of convenience, fine hospitality and thoughtful cuisine has kept it relevant even as the early-period Hugh Grant films have become film history.

As it’s no longer necessary to bed down for the night just a few minutes into a cross-country journey, the Crown has reinvented itself as a destination. This is the picture of the modern coaching inn, playing host to weekenders, stolen romantic moments and, not uncommonly, a bit of last-minute trade involving the after-dinner crowd. To that end they’ve thrown their weight solidly behind chef David Hawkins and the Chop House restaurant, serving the sort of simple classics that have turned contemporary British cooking from a punchline into a headline.

That doesn’t mean the lodgings are an afterthought, of course. Owners Tej and Sarina Dhillon brought in designer Ilse Crawford for a bit of collaboration, and the result is a perfectly judged mix of coaching-inn tradition and low-key, unpretentious contemporary style — the one exception being number 12, known both for its Four Weddings role and for its 16th-century décor.