Just outside Oxford, Chef Raymond Blanc presides over a magnificent manor house, renowned for its hotel, cuisine and stunning gardens. For Blanc, “if the work itself is transient, the memory of the flavour remains”. Amongst the abounding lavender, Blanc grows almost 90 varieties of vegetables and over 70 aromatic herbs, which you find on your plate, in one way or another. Blanc swears only by organic produce. The suites of the hotel, which all have evocative names and distinctive feels, the exoticism of Opium, the haven of tranquillity of Blanc de Blanc, the exuberance of Vettriano, are just as sublime.