Sebastian Snow and his wife Lana left London in July 2008 after running Hammersmith restaurant Snows on the Green for 17 years.

They then ran The Swan at Southrop and in 2010 we won the Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year award, beating Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay.

In August 2012, they took on The Five Alls at Filkins which has been hugely successful, attracting star customers including Kate Moss, who regularly pops in for a pint.

So when The Plough in Kelmscott came up for sale earlier this year on a freehold basis, they bought it in March, opened the restaurant in June, followed by the four of the eight rooms in July.

It is a 17th century Grade II listed inn and the couple have made it a cosy British pub, serving traditional British pub food, such as fish pie, scampi in a basket and spam fritters.

Serves eight

1kg diced lamb shoulder
2 tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper to dust
25ml rapeseed oil
20g butter 
2 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
1 bay leaf
1 onions chopped
1 stick celery chopped
1 carrot chopped
1 clove of garlic chopped
150g of pearl barley
150ml white wine
500ml lamb stock
250ml of water if required
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
6 largeish floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper

Preheat the oven to 170C. Dust the meat lightly with flour and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper. 

Fry the meat in the oil and half the butter till brown and set aside. Transfer the meat to saucepan and cover with white wine, stock, bayleaf and thyme, bring to boil and turn down to simmer.

Meanwhile boil the potatoes until soft but not broken, strain and when cool, peel and slice them thinly in rough circles.

After 10 minutes of cooking, sauté the chopped vegetables in separate frying pan and add to lamb with the pearl barley and cook for one hour or until the lamb is tender, adding water if it becomes too thick, before adding the tomato puree. Stir and take off heat.

If you are making the hotpot in individual dishes, butter these dishes add the meat coated by enough stock followed by the sliced potatoes on top with a few knobs of butter, salt and pepper.

Cover and bake for 30 more minutes in the oven until the potatoes are golden and crisp. Serve with pickled red cabbage.