So what would you head for in the Cotswolds? Well, 38 million visitors a year can’t be wrong. Swinging towards Filkins from Birmingham, you can head via Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold and the fine, if busy, village of Burford with its high street full of cafes, tearooms, delis and dog-friendly wandering. Swerve across to Faringdon, and there is a diving helmet set in stone as a tribute to Salvador Dali, and the enigmatic Faringdon Folly with its plea not to feed the giraffes. English eccentricity is at its finest here.

What has been great in the restoration of the Five Alls pub is how it can mean different things to different people, depending on what you want from this comfortable and spacious building. There is a classic country pub, with carefully kept local beers and a menu of pub snacks designed to help you while away the evening. There’s a snug with sofas and a beautifully kept garden fragrant with herbs that are used in the kitchen. Then there are the comfortable bedrooms, some in the main building and others in a courtyard setting. Plus there is the eclectically designed restaurant, with a menu big enough to be interesting and short enough to be focused. There is room here too for larger events, such as the 60 cover celebration due on the day we left.

So turning first to the bedrooms, there is every comfort you could hope for, from Noble Isle toiletries to a well-stocked Nespresso machine with milk and water in a teeny fridge, plus the Roberts radio playing to welcome you. The bed is so vast you might lose your partner in the night, and towels are as soft and fluffy as you could expect. In short, all your creature comforts are met, right down to a tiny flower garden and hanging baskets outside your door, plus a traditional dry stone Cotswold wall to the rear. The country living dream is real.

After a restorative shower and what may have been a brief nap for one of the party, we headed to dinner. I chose a crispy duck salad with plum sauce and a good sprinkling of sesame. This was both generous and gorgeous, with the duck full of flavour and properly crispy. My dining companion went for the crispy pancake. We were sharing memories of crispy pancakes of our youth when this arrived: a plate of crunchy base topped with retro-ish prawns dressed in Marie Rose sauce.

From the selection of mains, my dining companion chose cod and chips with traditional accompaniments. Like the starter, this was properly crispy with soft cod within. I chose the pork belly, not crispy on this occasion, but succulent and accompanied by a rich sauce, broccoli and new potatoes, tasting as though they had not long ago escaped from the soil.

Desserts were simply beautiful. I opted for caramelised pineapple with mango sorbet accompanied by an amaretto crumb. The flavours were sublime, and the pineapple’s caramelisation absolute perfection. My companion chose a choux bun. This was the emperor of choux buns: light, fluffy, stuffed with cream and caramel and crowned with chocolate. He was unnaturally silent when faced with this beauty; in truth I think he could have accommodated another bun, generous in size though it was. So very delicious all round…

If you have food allergies and intolerances, you can dine safely here. I am coeliac and lactose intolerant, and all three courses were carefully and subtly adapted for me, keeping the essence of each dish. In particular, it was so good to find a dessert that was not just a scoop of sorbet (delicious though that can be), but instead paired interesting flavours and textures to beautiful effect.

The restaurant attracts both visitors and locals, and we were pleased to hear that some of the other tables had been staying at Five Alls for some time. It has to be said that we were also somewhat envious that they had dined and breakfasted for several meals. Breakfast was as delicious as dinner, with fluffy scrambled eggs, flavourful streaky bacon and sausage, mushrooms, beans, a tomato that tasted of sun plus a perfectly fried egg. Toast, cereals and juices gave plenty of fuel for further exploration.

If you, like us, were wondering about the name of the Five Alls, it’s the ancient name for an inn. The Five Alls are the monarch (rules all), the lawyer (pleads for all), the priest (prays for all), the soldier (fights for all) and the peasant (works for all).

Don’t forget to visit the quirky folly at Faringdon, and spend some time wandering Burford (go early for a parking spot in summer). And definitely consider the Five Alls in all seasons. I can totally imagine a warm dinner by the fire on a crisp autumn day, and certainly the possibility of Christmas in comfort.