The story
The Hoddington Arms sits in the quiet Hampshire village of Upton Grey, just outside Basingstoke. It has been listed in the Michelin Guide every year since 2015, and in 2026 it earned the Michelin Recommended distinction. The Good Food Guide also features it year after year. This is a pub that takes its food seriously.
The kitchen focuses on British cuisine, using locally sourced ingredients. The menu changes with the seasons, and the wine list is carefully chosen. The dining room is warm and characterful, with a fireplace and wooden beams. Service is attentive and unhurried.
The Hoddington Arms is open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Sunday. The kitchen serves lunch from 12pm and dinner from 6pm. On Sundays, lunch is available until 4pm. The pub is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but the rest of the week it hums with locals and visitors alike.
Outside of the dining room, there is a garden for warmer days. The pub also has five ensuite rooms upstairs, called The Hideaway, for those who want to extend their evening. Breakfast is served in the pub for guests.
The Hoddington Arms is not a gimmick. It is a proper village pub that has earned national recognition by doing simple things well: good ingredients, careful cooking, and genuine hospitality. The Michelin Guide has noted it for a decade, and the consistency speaks for itself.
Whether you come for a Sunday roast, a midweek dinner, or a weekend stay, the experience is the same: British food that respects its origins, served in a room that feels like home.
This is a place where the food is the reason to visit, and the comfortable rooms are a bonus. The Hoddington Arms proves that a country pub can be both a local favourite and a destination for food lovers.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
A family-run pub well versed in the arts of hospitality is exactly what you would hope to find in a village like Upton Grey, and in the Hoddington Arms, locals have undoubtedly lucked out. A varied mix of indoor spaces framed by wooden rafters and exposed brickwork, together with tables in the garden, make for a properly bucolic air – and Chris Barnes’ kitchen does the rest. A certain quirkiness embraces slate plates and Kilner jars, with little metal buckets for the chips, but the heart of the operation lies in an appealing range of classic and modern-classic dishes. Smoked duck breast with pickled mooli and five-spice plum chutney or, perhaps, portobello mushroom arancini with truffled garlic mayonnaise are promising ways to start, before sea bass and citrus-braised fennel in tomato and red pepper sauce makes an appearance. There are readers for whom the Sunday roasts and the short-rib burgers with Cheddar, mustard mayo and onion rings are perfection personified, although these are run close by the sticky toffee pudding, jazzed up with medjool dates and served with clotted-cream ice cream. For something lighter in summer, look to vanilla panna cotta with strawberries poached in English sparkling wine. British cheeses are well-kept, and the ‘Hodd’ (as it's affectionately known) offers quality beers from Hampshire brewers, as well as a good spread of wines.
2 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
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