It’s the perfect recipe for a lip-smacking weekend break. Take six top British chefs. Sprinkle generously across the country. Then grill them for an hour about their favourite destinations for a gastro-themed getaway, garnished with appetising places to stay, a tasty restaurant or two and lots of spicy suggestions for sampling the freshest local produce. Finally, add stock details: all the costs and contacts you’ll need to sample these lovely foodie regions for yourself. And serve…

LESLEY WATERS on...West Dorset

The Pru Leith protégée has 20 years of television cooking behind her, especially on the BBC’s Ready Steady Cook. Her cookery school is based at Minterne House, in Dorset

Once you get away from the honeypots — the Lulworths, the Lymes — it’s amazing how unspoilt Dorset still feels. I often revisit the ramble I did on my first trip here, along the River Brit from Beaminster to Netherbury. Straight away, I was in love. If you like eating, Beaminster is a good base. It’s your classic Wessex market town, with a great butcher’s and greengrocer’s, and it’s fast becoming a food hot spot — especially since Mat Follas, this year’s MasterChef winner, opened his restaurant, the Wild Garlic. He’s doing dishes from the show, such as spider crab thermidor. Only problem is, it’s so popular that I can never get a table.

Where the world's best chefs go to eat

From street shacks to Michelin stars, here's where the biggest names in the culinary world like to go

• Rick Stein's foodie tour of Sicily

• Raymond Blanc: my Provence love affair

Foraging for sea food on Britain's coast

Strike cockle gold: how to find a fresh feast using the ocean as your larder

Related Links

• 10 cosy British inns

If you can afford it, stay at Summer Lodge. It’s a spoil-yourself country-house hotel in a picture-perfect village, Evershot, which can’t have changed a bit since Tess of the d’Urbervilles wandered through it in Hardy’s novel. Summer Lodge is my favourite place to eat in Dorset. The head chef, Steven Titman, is super-talented, and the dish I had last time — fillet of beef with a blue vinny cheese crust — is so divine that I’ve stolen it.

I can also recommend the hospitality at the Greyhound, in Sydling St Nicholas — it’s so welcoming, exactly how you want a country inn to be. They have nice guest rooms and do a big Sunday roast, with proper crackling. I went there for my last birthday. The inn is on the Wessex Ridgeway footpath, and you can wander along to Cerne Abbas and examine the giant’s wares. You should also call in at Sydling Brook farm shop: small but perfectly formed, with its own goat’s cheese, honey and organic meat. They do the best chorizo sausages ever — excellent for a hangover.

I must mention Bridport, which has a super farmers’ market, and my two top seafood restaurants, both by the sea. The Riverside, at West Bay, is a stripped-down, stylish sort of place, doing classics such as grilled dover sole. Then there’s the Hive Beach Café, at Burton Bradstock. Go early, because, oh, my God, their breakfasts: great slabs of granary toast with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Then take the kids along the sands to battle the breeze.

Plan it: Summer Lodge (01935 482000, www.summerlodge hotel.co.uk) has B&B doubles from £205; beef with blue vinny crust, £35. The Greyhound (01300 341303, www.thegreyhound.net) has doubles from £70; Sunday roast £9.50. Three-course dinner at the Wild Garlic (01308 861446, thewildgarlic.co.uk) costs about £30. The Riverside (01308 422011, thefishrestaurant-westbay.co.uk ) has mains from £12; while breakfast specials at the Hive (01308 897070, hivebeach cafe.co.uk) cost £7. Bridport farmers’ market (01297 678318) is on the second Saturday of the month; Sydling Brook farm shop (01300 341992, sydling.co.uk) is open Tuesday to Saturday.

MATT TEBBUTT on…Monmouthshire

Raised in Newport, Matt is a regular on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen; his first book is Matt Tebbutt Cooks Country. A keen forager, he runs the Foxhunter restaurant, in Nantyderry

Monmouthshire has become an oasis of good food in Wales, with big-name chefs moving down, such as Stephen Terry, and Shaun Hill, who kick-started the food movement in Ludlow. You can’t blame them: the landscape is beautiful, with soft hills lapped by rivers and woods, ripe for hiking. It’s still got that secret feel.

I recommend basing yourself at Clearvewe B&B, near Usk, and then shooting north on the Brecon road — a gorgeous, winding drive. You can divert to Goytre Wharf and hire a narrowboat for a day, or just walk the canalside — it’s where I go foraging for elderflowers and brambles. Clearvewe is a new-ish venture, a barn conversion done to a high spec, with top-of-the-mountain views. It’s a bargain.

Times recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• The UK and Ireland's 25 best Christmas events
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winners