Markyate · food
Markyate is a linear A5 village: a short list of local places, and Hemel, Harpenden or Luton when you want a scene.
The Sun Inn and village takeaways do the honest work. Pretending otherwise is how guidebooks annoy people who live here.
Our listings will send you to Hemel or Harpenden where Markyate has no equivalent: and we will say so.
Rooms we would book for a birthday: cooking, service, noise level, and whether the bill feels like the evening we had.
Markyate is small enough that an honest “best restaurants” list should admit gaps. These are the nearest Dacorum options we would actually send you to.
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01
97 High Street, Berkhamsted · Berkhamsted
The Gatsby occupies a 1930s cinema and has been Berkhamsted’s special-occasion dining room since 2005: à la carte, Sunday roast, cocktails and a piano. It is theatrical without being a tourist trap, and it still books out for birthdays. Come for the room as much as the plate.
02
196 High Street, Berkhamsted · Berkhamsted
Copper House is the High Street’s polished independent: cocktails, weekend afternoon tea, Sunday roast and a dining room that works for a Friday night without requiring a christening. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays, which is a useful filter for people who live here rather than pass through.
03
Gravel Path, Berkhamsted · Berkhamsted
If you walk the Grand Union through Berkhamsted you will eat at The Boat eventually. It is a Fuller’s house with a terrace on the water, a fire in winter, and the particular mix of muddy boots and pushchairs that means a town is working. Food is seasonal pub rather than gastropub theatre.
04
Stationers Place, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead · Hemel Hempstead
Apsley’s industrial past is in the name. The Paper Mill is a modern Fuller’s house on Stationers Place, with canal terrace, fires and a menu that feeds families after the towpath. Stay for the corkscrew bridge and the marina even if you only came for a pint.
05
Tring High Street / former bank building · Tring
Barracuda sits in a former bank and behaves like a neighbourhood Italian: pizza, risotto, a house chicken everyone orders anyway. It is the Tring high-street restaurant you take visiting parents to when you do not want a gastropub lecture.
06
Akeman Street, Tring · Tring
Reopened in 2026 after a refurbishment and a renaming that nods to the reservoirs. The Tufted Duck is Brunning & Price / Acorn territory: charcoal, wood oven, a long wine list, a Sunday roast that Tring will argue about. If you knew it as The Akeman, give the new room a fair sitting.
More from the directory: Markyate Fish Bar & Kebab HouseMarkyate Grill at Fusion FoodsMarkyate Cricket & Football Club
Planning
Supplementary Planning Documents for the HGC area are now adopted. They will guide neighbourhoods, infrastructure and the long argument about how Hemel grows north.
25 June 2026