Best Contemporary British Restaurants in Shaftesbury

Incredible food with lovely service in a really scenic location. Loved the no waste ethos and couldn’t get over the flavours. Incredibly good value too! We will be back.

Relaxed, friendly place with food that's worth travelling a long way to experience. Outstanding.

We visited The Olive Tree on Friday evening for their seven-course tasting menu, and overall, we had a fantastic evening. On arrival, we received a lovely warm welcome into the restaurant. It was relatively quiet, with only a small number of other guests dining, which made for a really relaxed and intimate atmosphere. We were presented with an excellent wine list, and the staff were extremely helpful in guiding us towards a wine that would complement the tasting menu. The wine selection was quite expensive, but that’s perhaps to be expected at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Throughout the evening, we were looked after by a number of different members of staff and chefs, all of whom were friendly, welcoming and knowledgeable. Each course was brought out and explained in detail, including the ingredients, flavours and techniques used to create the dishes. This really added to the experience and gave us a greater appreciation of the food. The food itself was absolutely outstanding. We were genuinely blown away by the quality, presentation, flavours, textures and colours of every dish. Each course was an experience in its own right, and the standard of cooking was exceptional. We were at the restaurant from around 7 pm until 10.30 pm, so it was quite a lengthy dining experience. On occasion, we did feel the wait between courses was a little longer than necessary, although that’s probably us being a little picky. We had a brilliant night. The food was genuinely out of this world, and the team did a fantastic job of making the tasting menu an experience rather than simply a meal. A restaurant we would certainly recommend for the quality of its food, and an evening we thoroughly enjoyed.

From booking to leaving the staff were excellent, lot of them around attentive and happy. The food had some interesting combinations well presented and very tasty

A very happy birthday at Knoll House. Very well looked after on my special day. Thank you. ❤️