A Restaurant Magazine survey of top chefs and restaurant critics - looking at a combination of fine food, location, service and general ambience - has bestowed the 24-cover Merchant House restaurant in Ludlow with an Outstanding Value restaurant prize.

The Merchant House, occupying a Jacobean building in Lower Corve Street, came 14th in a table of the world's top 50 restaurants and was one of 11 British establishments named.

It is owned by AA Chef of the Year 2003, Shaun Hill and his wife, Anja and offers a three-course dinner for £33.

Thom Hetherington of Restaurant Magazine said the success of the Merchant House was part of a trend in which chefs are setting up world-class restaurants in obscure rural locations.

He added: A lot of them have realised that instead of slogging their guts out in London they can buy a rural property and people are now willing to travel there.

The other UK restaurants appearing in the survey include Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London (5th); Gidleigh Park, Devon (19th); Nobu, London (26th); Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, Oxfordshire (29th); The Ivy, London (31st); The Three Chimneys, Isle of Skye (32nd); Petrus, London (33rd); The Square, London (43rd); River Café, London (47th) and St John, London (49th).

The world's top 10 restaurants according to the panel are The French Laundry in California's Napa Valley at number 1, followed by El Bulli, Barcelona; Le Louis XV, Monaco; Jean Georges, New York; Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London; L'Arpege, Paris; Comme chez Soi, Brussels; Rockpool, Sydney; L'Ambroisie, Paris and Gramercy Tavern in New York.