There are good restaurants to be found just about everywhere you look. Travel 30 minutes from your front door and I guarantee you’ll stumble on at least one brilliant mom-and-pop operation quietly going about its business, serving honest and delicious plates of food. Making a list like this – a round-up of the very best restaurants in the UK – is difficult because there are simply too many to choose from. There are good spots dotted all across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland working tirelessly to create dishes that will, yes, fill you up but also provide you with napkin-stained memories that you can carry with you for the rest of your life. This list is about those places. These aren’t the best restaurants in the UK, but they are of the best restaurants in the UK. Eat up.
1. Erst
Natural wine and seasonal small plates? You know the drill by now. Yes, Erst is one of those uber-cool restaurants where you can spend £8 on a plate that carries nothing but a neat row of nude anchovies but it’s undoubtedly the urtext restaurant of that genre. Those Cantabrian anchovies are excellently sourced and devilishly salty while other ever-changing inventive plates (think mussels in escabeche with Marinda tomatoes, lardo, and sourdough) and grilled flatbreads round off a menu of hits from head chef Patrick Withington. The wine list is excellent, too.
2. BiBi
Chet Sharma’s BiBi is one of the most exciting places to eat in London right now. The restaurant brands itself as ‘contemporary Indian’ but, considering the artistry and ingenuity of dishes like Wookey Hole cheese papad and Kentish pea Dahi puri, I’d say it’s selling itself short. There’s some extremely clever cooking going on here but none of that thinking and tinkering with the classics gets in the way of the most important thing of all: the deliciousness of the dishes that come out of the kitchen. Prop yourself up at the bar for front-row tickets to the show.
3. Sonny Stores
Every neighborhood needs a brilliant and ambitious restaurant. Sonny Stores is Southville’s. The chalkboard menu changes daily but you can always expect it to be packed to the rafters with delicious-sounding (and tasting) plates of Italian-inspired food. Fresh pasta, pizzettas, and Cicchetti-style snacks are all made in-house using high-quality produce and cooked with a judicious amount of restraint. Husband-and-wife duo Mary Glynn and Pegs Quinn have created something truly special here. Save room for the tiramisu.
4. Ynyshir
Ynyshir is an experience. It is expensive and intimidating and they don’t cater to any dietary requirements. Don’t like it? Don’t go. That’s chef-patron Gareth Ward’s bullish approach and it’s one that’s as honest as it is rebarbative. Ynyshir is not for everyone but those that get it, get it. The multi-course tasting menu is Japanese-inflected and features some incredible produce cooked with extreme precision and gusto. This riot of a restaurant offers you the chance to lose yourself in a cavalcade of food that doesn’t pull any punches. It might just be the most fun you’ll ever have in a fine-dining setting.
5. Hare & Hounds
Some of the best meals in the UK are to be had at proper pubs that care about the food that comes out of their kitchens. The cooks at the Hare & Hounds in Aberthin care more than just about anyone. The furthest thing you could imagine from a poncy gastropub, this is still very much a pub-pub that’s frequented by plenty of locals and dog walkers. It just so happens that they’ve also got a Michelin Bib Gourmand. All of the food – from the freshly baked sourdough bread and cultured butter to the supple fresh pasta – is made from scratch in the kitchen. You can tell. Because it’s excellent.
6. Inver
Looking out over the shore of Loch Fyne, Inver is a shining little jewel in the crown of the Scottish dining scene. It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, making the trek to this beatific restaurant comes highly recommended. Boasting shellfish sourced from nearby lochs, the menu at Inver is unsurprisingly seafood-heavy and even more unsurprisingly immaculate in its execution. Expect to eat a range of thoughtfully composed dishes that taste just as good as they look. Visit Inver if you’re after a modern reimagining of – and loving ode to – traditional Scottish cuisine.
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