The Dining Rooms at The Worsley Park Hotel is a light and spacious restaurant that takes traditional British food and gives it a modern twist. So far, so ‘every decent hotel restaurant’.

From the minute we arrived the staff created a pleasant and friendly atmosphere and our waiter was very helpful and knowledgeable about the menu and wine list. He recommended a 2013 Chenin Blanc to accompany our food choices and he was spot on. It was a lovely wine that somehow managed to compliment both the meaty courses that I chose and the vegetarian ones selected by my colleague.

All of our food arrived promptly, although this might partly have been because the restaurant was surprisingly empty for a Friday night. It’s worth noting here that the hotel is a little out of the way which probably explains the number of customers.

To start with I had chicken liver parfait and my colleague had asparagus with blood orange and hollandaise sauce, both off the specials menu. The blood orange nicely cut through the taste of the asparagus, which was well cooked. My parfait was flavoursome and had a lovely texture but, as is so often the way, it needed a little more toast to accompany it.

For the main course I had lamb in a Chambord jus with mashed potato and roasted beetroot and my colleague had a macaroni and cheese pie with garlic bread and salad. My lamb was tender and meaty and went perfectly with the beetroot and jus. My colleague too was impressed by her macaroni and cheese pie, finding it to be an inventive take on a classic dish which used great quality ingredients and was just the right size. However, there could have been more of the accompanying salad as on its own the pie was a little salty.

To finish, I had a white chocolate panna cotta with raspberry sorbet and a raspberry soup. The creaminess of the panna cotta went perfectly with the sharpness of the raspberry – it was possibly my favourite dish of the evening. My colleague had the sampler which came with miniature versions of the chocolate torte, the blood orange cheesecake and the sticky toffee pudding. Each was served with a suitable sorbet or ice cream and it was clear that thought had gone into the flavour combinations. The torte was dense and rich, just as it should be. Unfortunately, the cheesecake was a little bland and the sticky toffee pudding whilst delicious was lacking in sauce leaving it a little dry in the middle. However, I suspect that this might just be a problem with the miniature taster dish rather than the dessert when served on its own.  Both desserts, as with all the courses, were immaculately presented.

The Worsley Park Hotel is a cut above your average hotel restaurant and is certainly a good choice for a meal on a special occasion. Does it manage to do anything radical in its attempt to provide a modern twist on traditional dishes? Not really. Would I recommend visiting anyway? I certainly would.