The Sun Inn is an idyllic country Inn. A restaurant serving delicious and well crafted gastro pub fare amongst glorious countryside with a small number of bedrooms upstairs so that you can fall into bed after eating and drinking until you can move no further.

Located around 20 minutes outside Edinburgh you do have to make a special trip and will not come across it without design. However it is most certainly worth the visit. On the Sunday night that we visited the restaurant was fit to bursting as early as six o’clock and continued to be so right through the evening. It is clearly popular and deserving of its accolades (winning awards as Gastropub of the year 2010).

The dining room is large although homely with its roaring fires. It is designed to a modern rustic stylee: dark tables, some wood panelling, a little bit of traditional wall paper and the odd old photo adorns the walls. It is warm and comfortable and very busy. The staff, a fairly young bunch move efficiently round the tables and provide a decent and professional service.

The restaurant is most easily described as a gastro pub in terms of the kind of food it serves, however there are certainly a few surprises on the regularly changing menu. Starters include, home-made soup, traditional prawn cocktail, fishcakes, pate and risotto. Spanning continents and not restricting itself to European cuisine, there is also an Asian style platter which includes, samosas, dhal, and bhaji, and my particular favourite, barbecue spare ribs with a sticky orange ginger and treacle glaze served with home-made baked beans!

Main courses offer a really good choice from a traditional roast (which included roast partridge when we visited) and modern staples of the gastro pub such as steak, chips and rocket. My partner found it difficult to choose between the ‘pig on a plate’ option which brought together pork belly, pork loin and black pudding in a sumptuous meat feast, and the loin of venison with macsweens haggis, roasties and a delicious port jus. He ended up with the latter and was not disappointed. My baked cod option was delicious, served with a crispy potato pancake which was light, non greasy and well seasoned. The scallops worked very well against the crispy leeks and the creamy herby sauce was an ideal accompaniment to the saltiness of the meal.

Desserts were yummy. There is a small menu of about five, all very attractive if a little predictable for a gastro pub menu. We went a little conservatively for a crème brulee (imaginatively adapted with baileys) and a sticky toffee pudding. Both were really good and not a crumb was left on our plates!

Coming from London, the prices seemed absolutely reasonable to us. Starters priced at£5-£7, mains £10-£17 and desserts £5. Drinks prices are as with a standard pub and definitely reasonable. Three courses with wine will set you back £40 or so, but the standards are very high and can compete favourably with top end dining in terms of invention and flavour.

Whilst it is well worth a visit just for a meal (plenty of parking if you drive and on a main bus route out of Edinburgh), I would recommend you make a night of it and book one of the gorgeous bedrooms for the night. All are well equipped with flat screen TV, hair straighteners and dryer, wifi, tea and coffee making (with fab home made cookies). Our bed was enormous, with crisp white bed linen, and gargantuan wooden posts. There was a large copper bath at the foot of the bed, it takes a while to fill as it is voluminous but is well worth the effort.

The décor is contemporary and simple, and fits well with the trend for boutique accommodation. It has retained the rustic style that fits with its location (lots of natural colours and materials) but also has a great deal in terms of modern luxuries and styling and a high spec. Prices for a nights stay which includes a fine full Scottish breakfast in the morning, start at £70.