The Checkers

A Michelin-recognised tasting menu in a Welsh border pub: worth the journey

If you are planning a special dinner in the Welsh Marches and want cooking that punches well above its surroundings, The Checkers in Montgomery is the right booking. This is a former village pub run by a husband-and-wife team, it holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025 — a signal that the kitchen is technically consistent and worth a dedicated trip. The format is a tasting menu, the setting is low-beamed and unpretentious, four bedrooms upstairs mean you can make a full overnight of it without driving home on country roads.

The timing that works well here is a weekend stay: arrive Friday or Saturday, take the tasting menu with the wine pairing, use one of the four bedrooms. The Checkers is in a small market town with limited late-night options, so the stay-and-dine model is the natural fit. Midweek tables are easier to secure and the room will be quieter, but the weekend rhythm — especially in spring and autumn when the Powys countryside is at its most appealing, suits the pace of the cooking and the occasion.

What the cooking is actually like

The kitchen is classically trained and shows it through restraint rather than showmanship. The Michelin write-up specifically calls out a line-caught turbot with laverbread and chervil butter sauce as a dish where simplicity carries the most weight, a useful calibration for what to expect. This is not a kitchen chasing complexity for its own sake. The emphasis is on sourcing local and seasonal produce and letting that quality do the heavy lifting, which in a £££ tasting menu format is exactly the right approach.

Laverbread is a distinctly Welsh ingredient, a seaweed preparation that appears in Welsh coastal cooking and pairs with the natural salinity of well-sourced fish. Its inclusion here is not decorative regionalism; it is a practical choice that makes the dish work. For food and travel enthusiasts who want cooking that is rooted in a specific place, this kind of ingredient decision is a meaningful signal about the kitchen's priorities.

The wine pairing is recommended if your budget allows. At a venue of this size and ambition, a small operation in a rural setting with a Michelin Plate, the list is likely to be carefully chosen rather than exhaustive, which often means better value in the pairing than you would find at a larger city restaurant. That said, prices for the pairing are not confirmed in our data, so ask when booking.

How it compares to the broader UK tasting menu category

The Checkers operates in interesting company nationally. At the more decorated end of the UK's rural fine dining circuit, venues like L'Enclume in Cartmel and Moor Hall in Aughton carry multiple Michelin stars and require planning months in advance. Gidleigh Park in Chagford and Hand and Flowers in Marlow occupy a similar tier of serious destination cooking outside London. The Checkers is not operating at that star level, the Michelin Plate is a quality signal, not a star, but the core proposition is comparable: a rural setting, focused cooking, accommodation that makes the trip viable without adding urban logistics.

For the price tier (£££) and the format, The Checkers delivers a disproportionate quality-to-setting ratio. You are getting Michelin-recognised cooking in a genuinely relaxed room, which is harder to find than it sounds. At starred venues like Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London or Waterside Inn in Bray, the formality is part of the price. Here, the low-beamed pub interior sets a different register, the food is the occasion, not the room's self-regard.

For context on how this style of casual excellence translates internationally, hide and fox in Saltwood and Midsummer House in Cambridge are useful UK reference points in a similar bracket. Further afield, Frantzén in Stockholm and Maison Lameloise in Chagny show how the rural-destination-dining model operates at its ceiling in Europe.

Ratings and trust signals

• Michelin Plate: 2024 and 2025, consistent recognition across two consecutive years
• Price range: £££, tasting menu territory, appropriate for the format and the occasion

Booking and practical details

Booking difficulty is moderate. This is a small venue in a small town, four bedrooms and a dining room that will not seat many covers, so lead time matters. If you want a weekend table with a bedroom, four to six weeks out is a sensible minimum. Midweek is more available. Hours and direct booking links are not currently in our data; check the venue's own channels or contact directly.

Montgomery is a small market town in Powys, mid-Wales. Getting there requires a car for most visitors, there is no practical rail option to Montgomery itself. Factor in the drive when planning: the surrounding countryside makes the journey worthwhile, the overnight stay removes any pressure around return timing.

Dress code is not formally published, but the pub-with-serious-food format suggests smart casual is the right register. The room is relaxed, but the cooking is not, so pitching somewhere between jeans-and-a-shirt and a suit reads the room correctly.

Practical comparison: The Checkers vs. similar UK rural dining destinations

Venue	Price tier	Michelin recognition	Rooms on-site	Booking lead time
The Checkers, Montgomery	£££	Plate (2025)	4 bedrooms	4–6 weeks (weekend)
Hand and Flowers, Marlow	£££	2 Stars	Yes (cottages)	6–8 weeks minimum
hide and fox, Saltwood	£££	1 Star	No	3–4 weeks
L'Enclume, Cartmel	££££	3 Stars	Yes	3–6 months

For more dining options in the area, see our full Montgomery restaurants guide. For where to stay nearby, our full Montgomery hotels guide covers the options. You can also browse bars, wineries, and experiences in Montgomery.