The Pig in Brockenhurst isn’t your average boutique hotel, nor is it your traditional country house hotel. Offering ‘rooms and kitchen garden food’, it is altogether something different, something rather unique and playful. This becomes apparent from the moment that you stumble upon the sign nestled amongst the oak, ash and beech trees of the New Forest; a shiny, bronze oinker set against a regal blue background.

Carry on up the tree-lined drive and you reach the main house, which stands solitary and proud, its front door guarded by two stone dogs watching over the daily comings and goings. A cosy hallway greets you, all polished wood, oil paintings, vintage gardening paraphernalia and potted herbs; and then there’s the smell – wood-smoke from roaring log fires.

Only a couple of months old, The Pig is the younger, self-sufficient cousin of Limewood House just a few miles up the road. While Limewood is reserved and super refined, The Pig is laid-back and home grown (literally) without trying too hard to be so. The menu is dictated by whatever is bought in fresh from the walled garden or by the local forager they employ.

Before supper we indulged in the must-have ‘citrus garden’ cocktails; campari, limoncello and cointreau served in vintage, mis-matched glasses. We ate vibrant beetroot with toasted seeds and creamy, tangy, local goats cheese followed by New Forest venison pie with chard. Desert was a refreshing marmalade jelly with bitter chocolate sorbet – delicious! We left like little pigs ourselves – very round, very happy and very relaxed.

Photo courtesy of The Pig