The UK's best restaurants revealed

Here are the UK's best restaurants according to the 2016 National Restaurant Awards.

The National Restaurant Awards has just announced the top 100 restaurants across the nation. Here are the top 15 places a panel of professional foodies judged to be the best places to eat out in the UK.

Image: Lake Road Kitchen/Facebook

15) Lake Road Kitchen, Cumbria

As the name suggests, the Lake Road kitchen sits in the heart of the Lake District and serves ingredients that it claims “thrive in our weather zone”. One of its specialities is its range of mushrooms, all of which are foraged locally. 

Image: Oxymoron/Creative Commons

14) Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottingham

Named after its chef-proprietor, this Nottingham restaurant (pictured above) has moved slightly further down the list after being placed in eighth position last year. But Sat Bains still remains hugely popular. It specialises in tasting menus that can cost anywhere up to £95, serving dishes such as crab satay with Kohlrabi tagliatelle and wild hare. 

Image: The Dairy/Facebook

13) Dairy, Clapham, London

Serving modern English/European food, south London’s Dairy keeps more of a vintage chic/bistro feel about it with recycled furniture, workshop light fittings and craft beers. But it’s not just another beer and burger joint. Chef Robin Gill’s menu offers anything from beef short rib slow cooked for 24 hours to fresh salads served with fresh truffle, which is grated for you at the table.

Image: Casamiabristol/Instagram

12) Casamia, Bristol

Right at home in the creative city of Bristol, Casamia serves British food, which is inspired by all the senses. The restaurant advertises its food as “the four seasons through your senses”, so you can only imagine how good the food is. It isn’t just the food that changes throughout the seasons though – its décor does too. 

Image:The Walnut Tree/Facebook 

11) The Walnut Tree, Abergavenny, Wales

This gastropub-style Welsh restaurant doesn’t massively differ in appearance from other country inns dotted around the Abergavenny area. But the menu tells a totally different story, with eclectic dishes such as salt cod with ravioli, squab pigeon and guinea fowl with its own kiev. 

Image: River Café 

10) River Café, Hammersmith, London

As well as its seasonal Italian cuisine and fine wines, this riverside restaurant is well known for its terrace overlooking the Thames. Because of both its high-quality menu and great location, the River Café now has a legacy as one of the most popular dining spots in London. 

Image: Lyles/Facebook

9) Lyles, Shoreditch, London

Opened in 2014 in the same building as Shoreditch classic Pizza East, Lyles is home to a set-price tasting menu comprising of British courses of all different sizes. You’re likely to find traditional ingredients with a more modern twist on the menu, such as a rhubarb and custard mousse and blood cake (aka black pudding). 

Image: L’Enclume

8) L’Enclume, Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands

Straying away from London, this Cumbrian restaurant was awarded a ‘perfect 10’ in 2014 for its cooking, and continues to serve award-winning food. The restaurant’s chef-patron Simon Rogan trained under Marco-Pierre White and now serves a Michelin-starred menu of locally-sourced, seasonal food such as smoked eel, brill and oxtail dumplings. 

Image: Twitter/Piquet

7) Piquet, Fitzrovia, London

Piquet is an Oxford Street gem, serving modern European cuisine cooked with more classic French techniques. The new Bloomsbury restaurant is also the highest new entry of 2016 to the list of best restaurants. The restaurant claims to offer a contemporary menu – including anything from duck rillettes to a croquette of pigs’ head – which can combine the culinary cultures of both England and France.  

Image: Twitter/Flickr Ewan Munro

6) The Clove Club, Shoreditch, London

The Clove Club sits in Shoreditch Town Hall in East London, serving a five-course menu of interesting and what it claims to be “forgotten” and “overlooked” British ingredients and produce, such as raw Orkney scallop and Yorkshire suckling pig with South Indian spice.

Image: OutlawsGrubClub/Twitter

5) Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Port Isaac/London

Chef Nathan Outlaw is the owner of three different restaurants under his name – one in Port Isaac, one in London and one in Cornwall, all of which are famous for their vast seafood menus. The dishes don’t come cheap at £119 per person for a tasting menu, but reviews suggest it’s well worth it. 

Image: Richard Haughton L 

4) Hedone, Chiswick, West London

Another Michelin-starred restaurant, the Hedone in West London climbed up to number four from number 12 in 2016, and is also recognised as the 60th best restaurant in the world. The menu is filled with anything from poached oysters to lamb, best sampled in a taster-style to allow you to try a number of different items from the menu. 

Image: The Ledbury

3) Ledbury, Notting Hill, London

Situated in Notting Hill in London, the Ledbury is run by chef Brett Graham, famous for his innovative cooking paired with fine wines. On the menu, you’ll find the likes of cuttlefish, pigeon and iberico pork, all of which have a twist on the traditional serving. Each dish is accompanied by a recommended wine choice, to help make your decision a little easier (and tastier).

Image: La Barrafina

2) La Barrafina, Covent Garden, London

This modern Spanish tapas bar is a chain of three restaurants located in the heart of Covent Garden and Soho, which will often have queues spilling out of the door as people wait to get a seat. Each restaurant has an open kitchen so people can watch their food being cooked over a glass of wine at the bar. The menu is full of Mallorcan and Catalan tapas dishes that push the restaurant to the top of the list for London restaurants. 

Image: The Sportsman

Image: The Sportsman

1) The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent

Topping the list is Kent gastropub the Sportsman. It was ironically once described by its chef-patron Stephen Harris as “a grotty boozer by the sea”, but has easily claimed the top spot, pushing London out of the limelight. It looks unassuming from the outside, but it produces some of the best dishes in the UK and many ingredients are made in-house, such as its butter, which is churned in the building. The team even boils down seawater to make salt. The Sportsman was also named the top gastropub in Britain in early 2016 and has held a Michelin star for eight years.

Which is your favourite UK restaurant and why? Let us know in the Comments below.

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