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Where to eat in Borough Market

A magnet for visitors and a meeting point for Londoners, Borough Market is never less than buzzy. But between the pricey juices and paella peddlers, finding the genuinely great spots to eat is a minefield. Food writer and London local ...

Where to eat in Chinatown: a local’s top 8

London local and founder of vegetarian Chinese supper club YING’S, Alice Hale has grown up enjoying the best of London’s Chinatown. With Lunar New Year around the corner, she shares her 8 favourite spots, what to expect and what ...

Where to eat in Margate: A guide to the art town's up-and-coming food scene

For such a small seaside town, Margate has a buzzing and decidedly creative vibe and offers a wealth of brilliant places to eat, from coffee shops and cafés to restaurants with national recognition.

Where to eat in Whitstable

Cool, trendy Whitstable, with its pretty beach huts, fishermen’s cottages and working harbour, remains a magical spot. The Sportsman in nearby Seasalter established a beachhead almost 25 years ago, and Stephen Harris’s pioneering produce-first approach is still well worth the ...

Where to find the best Philly cheesesteak

As a tribute to Thanksgiving, we salute that great American food classic, the Philly cheesesteak. Messy, greasy and utterly delicious, it’s never better than eaten in its hometown, Philadelphia – the birthplace of the United States. The Good Food Guide’s ...

Where to eat in York

Jill Turton, restaurant reviewer for the Yorkshire Post, co-founder of the Yorkshire restaurant directory Squidbeak and long-time York resident, gives her culinary tour.

A chef’s guide to dining out in Brighton & Hove

From Palmito’s Diego Ricaurte to etch’s Steven Edwards, join some of Brighton’s brightest chefs on their culinary tour of the seaside city’s age-old institutions and undiscovered gems.

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“*Jason Atherton has announced that Pollen Street Social will be closing down later this year. Last service 31 July. * Jason Atherton’s Mayfair stalwart has weathered the tidal waves of London restaurant fashion with impressive durability over the past 10 years. ...” Read More

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03 Apr, 2024

A magnet for visitors and a meeting point for Londoners, Borough Market is never less than buzzy. But between the pricey juices and paella peddlers, finding the genuinely great spots to eat is a minefield. Food writer and London local Clare Finney shares the best of the market and the ...

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30 Best UK Restaurant Review Blogs and Websites

• OpenTable UK
• Gourmand Gunno Restaurant Blog
• The Nottingham Food Blog
• Cheese and Biscuits
• The Infatuation » London
• Restaurants Brighton Blog
• Emily's Recipes and Reviews
• Major Foodie
• Bitten Oxford Blog
• The Bon Vivant Journal
• Halal Girl About Town
• Yorkshire Food Guide
• Gourmet Gorro
• Frusher on Food
• The Picky Glutton
• Pastabites » Restaurant Review
• HaraldOnFood.com
• Samphire and Salsify | London food blog with restaurant reviews and news
• The Graphic Foodie
• Leeds Foodie | Blogging about food, travel and parenting in Leeds - and beyond!
• London Eater | Restaurants. London and Beyond.
• EatWalkTalkBristol Food Tours
• The London Foodie
• Glasgow Food Geek
• The Foodaholic » Restaurant Reviews
• Binny's Food & Travel » Restaurant Reviews
• Squidbeak Blog
• Wrap Your Lips Around This » Restaurant Reviews

UK Restaurant Review Bloggers

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UK Restaurant Review Blogs

Here are 30 Best UK Restaurant Review Blogs you should follow in 2024

1. OpenTable UK

2. Gourmand Gunno Restaurant Blog

3. The Nottingham Food Blog

4. Cheese and Biscuits

5. The Infatuation » London

6. Restaurants Brighton Blog

7. Emily's Recipes and Reviews

8. Major Foodie

9. Bitten Oxford Blog

10. The Bon Vivant Journal

11. Halal Girl About Town

12. Yorkshire Food Guide

13. Gourmet Gorro

14. Frusher on Food

15. The Picky Glutton

16. Pastabites » Restaurant Review

17. HaraldOnFood.com

18. Samphire and Salsify | London food blog with restaurant reviews and news

19. Elsa Eats

20. The Graphic Foodie

21. Leeds Foodie | Blogging about food, travel and parenting in Leeds - and beyond!

22. London Eater | Restaurants. London and Beyond.

23. EatWalkTalkBristol Food Tours

24. The London Foodie

25. Glasgow Food Geek

26. The Foodaholic » Restaurant Reviews

27. Binny's Food & Travel » Restaurant Reviews

28. Squidbeak Blog

29. Wrap Your Lips Around This » Restaurant Reviews

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Where To Eat At 5PM Because You’re Tired & Need An Early Night

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Small in size but big in flavour, Mambow is a Malaysian spot in Clapton where you should plan to order greedily.

Italian American

Grasso is a Soho restaurant that specialises in good-times energy and big plates of Italian-American food.

Dream Xi'an

Dream Xi’an, an excellent Xi'anese restaurant in Tower Hill, is a welcoming spot for hunkering down with a book or a three-hour catch-up.

Modern European

St. James's

Arlington is a restaurant risen from the ashes of Le Caprice, and at this St. James's spot, it feels like the good times of the 1980s never went away.

Singaporean

Singapulah is a Singaporean spot on Shaftesbury Avenue that's a solid bet for a central London meet-up and pre-show meals.

Best Of London

17 Spots For Great Fried Chicken In London

From bags of hot wings, to spicy KFC, to juicy drumsticks.

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Spanning high-end omakase experiences to more casual spots with great hand rolls, these are the best places for sushi in London.

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From white tablecloth places to canteen-style spots, these are our 21 favourite Indian restaurants across the city.

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The best stalls and spots to eat and drink at London’s Borough Market.

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Burmese noodle soups, an OTT trattoria, some of London's best tapas, and more.

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The 38 Essential Restaurants in London

Spicy Yunnan chicken from an ambitious newcomer, stone-baked flatbreads and massive sandwiches at a Mediterranean bistro, dal and roti canai from a Malaysian basement spot, and more of London’s best meals

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The Eater 38 hopes to answer any question that begins, “Can you recommend a restaurant?” It’s a curated list that covers the entire city, spanning more than 20 cuisines, neighborhoods, and price points. It’s a list that tells the story of the London food scene, documenting the dim sum, Sunday roasts, curries, pizza, sinasir, rarebits, banh mi, udon noodles, pepper pot, and moo krob. All these dishes and more make London among the very best and most diverse places to eat in the world.

This guide aims to reflect the best food and most important restaurants in the capital as of winter 2024, including new venues as they make their mark and older establishments working to maintain their place in their communities. It continues to showcase a mix of over three dozen restaurants, which have all done outstanding things in extraordinary times: emerging, surviving, thriving, and continuing to enrich the city and its food culture through a half-decade of unprecedented change and tumult.

Adam Coghlan is a writer and editor based in London. In 2017, he launched Eater London and ran the site until it ceased daily publication in 2023. You can find him on Instagram @adamcoghlan .

Durak Tantuni

As Jonathan Nunn wrote in his guide to north London’s best-value restaurants , “Durak, a tantuni salonu run by Dogan Yesil on West Green Road, is the superior late night snack template.” Only the tantuni, a speciality which originates in the city of Mersin on the southern coast of Turkey, is served here. Beef is boiled, seasoned with the likes of tomato, pul biber, sumac, and cumin and subsequently fried in cotton oil before being loaded, meat juices aplenty, inside a thin lavash with chopped parsley, tomato, and onion. It is then given a pleasing bend before being eaten; a selection of high-acid accompaniments — pickled chillis, lemon — provide the necessary cut-through.

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Mukaddes Yadikar’s restaurant near Walthamstow Central station opened in London in summer 2017. It was London’s first strictly Uyghur restaurant , and has become perhaps E17’s finest neighbourhood restaurant. Some points of advice: First, go with a group. Second, to start, go for the Chaomian, a stir-fry of short noodle snippets wokked with chunks of beef, spring onion, and tomato. Third, and most importantly, get the signature da pan ji (“big plate chicken”): a remarkably deep, savoury, and spicy chicken and potato stew, teeming with Sichuan peppercorns, served with flat hand-pulled noodles. This is a warm, homely, and treasured space to eat in east London.

Bake Street

This small Stoke Newington cafe seriously overdelivers, preparing some of London’s best American diner-style smash burgers, Nashville hots, playful samosas, and the inimitable chicken makhani sandwich come the weekend, with a solid core menu for weekday visitors. Its sweet offering isn’t half bad either; do not miss the ingenious creme brulee cookie, developed by pastry chef Chloe-Rose Crabtree from a recipe by Los Angeles’s Dough and Arrow, or the seasonal ice cream from Crabtree and co-founder Feroz Gajia in warmer months.

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Chef Oded Oren’s cozy, dimly lit site on Dalston’s Shacklewell Lane is, in some ways, the archetype of a London neighborhood bistro in 2024: It serves sharing plates large and small, many of them vegetarian or vegan, which take inspiration from the eastern Mediterranean and modern Israeli cuisine (owing to Oren’s time at new wave Tel Aviv restaurants). The standout dish is listed on the menu as a Jerusalem mix grill: a robust, irresistible sandwich made of pillowy pita generously stuffed with grilled chicken thigh, hearts, and liver, along with tahini and raw onions. Bread, in fact, is a strong suit; the stone-baked flatbread with tomato and olive oil is outstanding. But then so are the precisely seasoned salads, dressed and roasted roots, fried seafood, and larger hunks of meat from the grill.

107 Wine Shop and Bar

When P. Franco, one of London’s most important wine bars and restaurants of the last decade, closed in March, it did so to widespread disbelief and sadness. But natural wine and small plate lovers need grieve no more, for 107 Wine Shop and Bar is here — on the same site, with many of the same staff (led by Will Gee), the same ilk of peripatetic guest chefs (recently Mitchell Damota and Elliot Hashtroudi), and the same low-intervention wines that P. Franco was so successful in mainstreaming in Hackney over the years. The communal high table remains; so too does the storm-snapped half sign bearing three letters of the name of the Chinese takeaway that came before P. Franco. Plus ça change?

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Westerns Laundry

Jeremie Cometto-Lingenheim and David Gingell’s Westerns Laundry (the pair also oversees Primeur, the various Jolenes, and Big Jo) is one of London’s best seafood restaurants, a notable champion of English and especially Cornish suppliers. It’s still serving glorious plates like fideo pasta rich with cuttlefish, squid ink, and aioli; monkfish friggitelli and mojo verde; and John Dory, peas, braised gem lettuce, and pancetta. A covered terrace and stellar wine list, with low-intervention and classic options, add to the reasons to visit this outstanding warmly lit and carefully designed Holloway restaurant.

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Eater London’s Restaurant of the Year 2022 is comprised of three discrete yet intertwined endeavours. Downstairs in the basement kitchen, George Jephson butchers whole animals, repurposing them as immaculate charcuterie, while upstairs, chef Jamie Smart uses excellent ingredients to prepare simple plates that lean French and southern European — think trout poached in butter with roe and sorrel; or a roast game bird with quince and bitter leaves. Sommeliers Tom Beattie and Fran Roberts, the duo behind the wine importer bearing both names, run the bar and the floor with a small team. Cadet is a wine bar, a restaurant, a charcutier, and a shopfront; it feels French and it feels London; and, from the moment it opened, it has always felt just right.

Bad Manners

Bad Manners — a breakfast and lunch kiosk, originally called Quarter Kitchen, which Max Fishman opened with chef Rodrigo Cervantes in a Hackney churchyard in summer 2022 — serves some of London’s best Mexican food. Originally from Mexico City and previously an employee of Smoking Goat , Koya, and Rita’s in London, Cervantes cooks a mighty fine breakfast. Options include two tortillas with hash browns, fried eggs, and smoked bacon glazed with maple syrup and sugar; breakfast burritos based on the American McDonald’s version (with sausage patties, American cheese, and chopped peppers); gorditas; tepache; tacos al pastor done on a small yakitori grill inside the kiosk; and the mess-making bright red pambazo. Bad Manners also serves excellent coffee and features a range of espressos from some of Europe’s best roasters.

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Bánh Mì Hội-An

This diminutive shop on Hackney’s Graham Road serves one of the city’s best sandwiches — inside one of the city’s best baguettes. Although the spot has just one table and three or four seats, it’s difficult to think of warmer hospitality than at Bánh Mì Hội-An. The duo behind the counter prepare fresh sandwiches to go, and while the pork classic is excellent, don’t sleep on the turmeric-heavy fried catfish on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays; fragrant with coriander, mayo, fermented chilli paste, sriracha, and pickled vegetables, it is an object lesson in flavour, texture, and balance.

Trullo’s elegant dining room and simple, seasonal food make it one of London’s best Italian restaurants and one of its finest neighbourhood restaurants. Dark wood, low lighting, white tablecloths, and straightforward plating make Trullo decidedly anti-Instagram. Its spiritual parents are the two most important restaurants of a generation, the River Cafe and St. John. Dishes marry Italian traditions with British (and Italian) ingredients, which are fashioned into antipasti, fresh pastas, and secondi, dishes which often do a little time on the charcoal grill. Where sister site Padella is cheaper, faster, and increasingly difficult to get into, Trullo, which offers the same signature beef shin pappardelle and other Padella hits, is more of a grown-up place to eat and relax. A largely Italian (and natural-leaning) wine list is just as considered as everything else.

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F.K.A.B.A.M. (Formerly Known as Black Axe Mangal)

Once, the existence of a restaurant like B.A.M. would have been unimaginable in London, but chef Lee Tiernan has pedigree (St. John), and London has changed. Here, Turk-ish (sourdough) flatbreads and kebabs by a British chef in Islington are prepared in a wood oven decorated with graffiti tributes to KISS et al. Tiernan closed the restaurant for much of 2020 and 2021 but has returned, a la Prince, with a new name and many of the old classics, including squid ink flatbread with smoked trout roe; lamb offal flatbread; and various well-travelled hunks of grilled protein imaginatively and judiciously seasoned.

East Ham is home to London’s largest Kerala community and its greatest concentration of South Indian restaurants. The pick of them is Thattukada, run by chef-owners Biju and Preeti Gopinath. Curries and roasts have a depth of flavour and spicing that belie their simple descriptions, and they should be mopped up with crisp parottas or snow-white appams. But it’s the legendary fries that are unmissable: half a chicken cut into segments, then aggressively and skilfully fried with chilli and crispy onions; little netholi (anchovies) cooked and eaten whole; or battered mussels that pop thrillingly in the mouth.

This elegantly designed wine club beneath a Haggerston railway arch now firmly belongs in the top bracket of (French) restaurants in London. Chef Seb Myers and his modern-ish, playful take on French country cooking fits perfectly with the fascinating and broad wine list owned by patron Jonathan Alphandery. With dishes such as a red mullet tartine; grilled leeks vinaigrette with Tunworth cheese; a duck offal choux farcis; and mackerel with coco beans and greens; as well as a caramel tart with blue cheese, Planque has nearly everything that makes a great modern European restaurant great.

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Cafe Cecilia

Since Cafe Cecilia opened in 2021, it has maintained a steady flow of plaudits from all the coolest places, in part because of chef-owner Max Rocha’s connection to the world of fashion (father John and sister Simone are designers). However, there’s a surfeit of substance as well as style in this stark, minimalist cafe-bistro. Rocha and his staff are direct descendents of the ingredients-obsessed River Cafe, Rochelle Canteen, and Quo Vadis. Like peer Anna Tobias’s cooking at Cafe Deco, Rocha’s can be a bit beige, but it’s deserving of the attention it has received. Do not miss the steak and chips with peppercorn sauce, nor fruit tart at dessert.

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Chef Mitshel Ibrahim’s Vyner Street trattoria cannily slants mainstays of Italian cuisine to create a restaurant that feels like the London Italian that it is, rather than the Venetian bacaró that inspires it. The dining room and ample terrace await faithfully with Roman artichokes; pillowy gnocchi fritti anointed with mortadella; carne salada paired with shimeji mushrooms alongside Parmesan; and quality rotating pastas. The tiramisu is deservedly legendary.

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The area around Euston station is replete with no-frills, delicious places to eat. This little Malaysian basement setup from chef Sugen Gopal on Doric Way may be the best. Two pieces of freshly made, high-moisture roti canai — to eat in or take away — are best served with curry dal. That speciality costs only £4.50, though round two is likely, and a newly introduced online queueing system has added a new seamlessness to the experience.

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Chef Ed Wilson’s hearty French Italian menu is a showcase for his own personal love of food. To eat here is to share that passion, especially now with an increased emphasis on fresh pasta and spectacular comfort food. Wines are predominantly natural and biodynamic. Illustrated wine posters, art, and curios on whitewashed brick walls also make the two relaxed dining rooms on Columbia Road among London’s most handsome and cool. Here also lie the city’s smallest and most beautiful bathrooms — among the very first to use Aesop, to boot.

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Kate's Cafe and Restaurant

At the late chef Kate Armah’s outstanding east London neighbourhood Ghanaian restaurant, the sharing platter — which includes tsofi, chicken wings, kebabs, plantains, and more — is the manifestation of generosity in hospitality. Other highlights include akonfem (guinea fowl), red red (fried plantain with black eye bean stew and gari foto), and any of the soups, which come served with choice of starchy sides such as fufu, kenkey, kokonte, or rice.

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After a refurbishment of both kitchen and premises, this haven on Farringdon Road is back to the form that has made it one of the most essential of the city’s essential kitchens in recent years. Chef Nick Bramham’s cooking now leans more towards the Aegean, with the likes of giouvarlakia bringing herbed meatballs bobbing in avgolemono. The menu will change weekly and will travel across southern Europe, but look out for Bramham’s clever riffs on BLTs, lobster rolls, and perfectly seasoned pasta dishes, after peerless gildas, before flawless sour cherry cannoli.

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Smoking Goat

Since March 2023, the always inventive Ben Chapman and his brilliant development chef Kim SongSoo have repositioned the laid-back Shoreditch Thai restaurant and bar Smoking Goat as a “chicken shop” — serving (very good) fried chicken, fish sauce wings, and snacks fashioned from crisped seasoned chicken skin. But Kim has also conceived a number of new dishes with a fresh focus on wok-cookery, including fried noodles with egg, chilli, and green onion that makes a visit essential; the moreish, textural phenomenon can work on its own or as the centrepiece around which other dishes can be enjoyed, such as the sweet, umami-rich pork with Chinese olives.

This handsome, minimalist, blond wood-and-concrete Shoreditch restaurant is a marriage of its co-owner James Lowe’s British heritage (St. John Bread & Wine) and his many stints across the globe, including one at Noma. Lowe is a gifted chef and one of London’s foremost proponents of quality British produce. His relaxed brand of fine dining regularly celebrates mutton, game, and goat, as well as wood-fired seafood and seasonal English vegetables.

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Sushi Tetsu

Clerkenwell’s Sushi Tetsu might be the hardest reservation in London, in part because there are only seven seats. It also pound-for-pound serves the best (value) sushi in the city. To observe Toru Takahashi’s knife skills and to eat his omakase menu while receiving Harumi Takahashi’s gently flawless hospitality (the two are married) is to experience one of London’s most complete and completely brilliant restaurants. Send an email to receive information on how to book.

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Otto's French Restaurant

Here is a restaurant that unashamedly and decadently revisits the past. Theatrical cooking happens tableside, and many guests take the chance to marvel at the traditional silverware required for the preparation of canard à la presse (pressed duck), Otto Tepasse’s trademark; the duck meat is dressed with a rich brandy-heavy gravy made from the pressed carcass and served alongside the world’s most otherworldly carbohydrate: pommes soufflées. When a restaurateur opens a namesake restaurant, especially in the possessive, it can be narcissistic or lazy or both. In the case of Otto’s, Tepasse is so important to this operation, the name could not be more appropriate.

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Sessions Arts Club

Florence Knight’s Sessions Arts Club pairs one of the city’s most stunning dining rooms with one of its low-key best and cleverest kitchens. No dish better demonstrates Knight’s skill and ingenuity than the fried potato, smoked eel, and cod’s roe, which sees the eel embedded inside the carbohydrate like a smoky fish-and-chip millefeuille. Other must-tries include the squid with calamarata pasta; crab croquettes; and rabbit, cotechino, cabbage, and mustard. If a Diptyque candle became a room, then this would be it.

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Chef Wei Guirong is a star of London dining: Her first (joint) venture, Xi’an Impression opposite the Emirates stadium in Highbury, has long held cult status among food lovers in London. But increasingly, Master Wei, Guirong’s solo project in Bloomsbury, is outshining its forebear. This is a bigger site, for one, which means there’s a greater chance of scoring a table — more space in which to enjoy peerless biang biang noodles with vegetables or beef; fine liang pi, cold skin noodles with a cool, refreshing, umami-rich dressing; and the chef’s Xi’an-style “burgers” with a filling comprising cumin-spiced beef or pork.

St John Bread and Wine

While the original St. John is rightly regarded as the most important British restaurant in a generation, Bread & Wine, the sister site in Spitalfields, is a better and more interesting restaurant today. If food were a religion, then this would be its church. Welsh rarebit, bone marrow and parsley salad, foie gras on toast, mussels with cider, devilled kidneys, half a dozen madeleines, and a whole roast suckling pig are classics. Lunch here is one of the purest, most heavenly restaurant experiences in London.

Where to Eat in Shoreditch

Shuko Oda’s little bar in Soho is among London’s most acclaimed Japanese restaurants. Over a long, blond wooden counter, chefs calmly and politely pass hot bowls of steaming broth containing noodles made on-site, topped with proteins like tempura prawn or smoked mackerel, or seasonal green vegetables from Sussex farm Namayasai. The specials board of small plates changes every day and exhibits some of the city’s best modern British cooking; the traditional Japanese breakfast is the most steadying in London.

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Cloud Land is one of just two London venues specializing in the cuisine of the Yunnan province of southwestern China, a style of cooking, according to a waiter at the restaurant, that’s a “cross between Thai and Sichuan.” The serious restaurant serves ambitious and delicious food. The Yunnan spicy chicken, red with chiles and smoky with Chinese black cardamom, is incredible (and incredibly unusual in the city). So too are the ceremonial cross-bridge noodle soup and the Dai-style fried beef and mince dishes (the latter are reminiscent of Thai larbs). There’s playfulness, too, in the crispy, simply seasoned pork and the vinegar-dressed fried cabbage, which is the perfect accompaniment to cut through a host of hotter, richer plates.

Gerrard Street’s Cantonese institution needs little introduction. Wong Kei is a decades-old London restaurant famous for its multistory dining room, roast meats (duck, char siu), wontons, red-ringed plates, and the now-cult (if much overstated) brusque service. Its enduring appeal — in spite of newer, trendier, regionally diverse restaurants in central London’s Chinatown — is its faithfulness to the traditions of dependable and delicious Cantonese cooking in the U.K., the stuff of a bygone era. In other words, it’s a giant, 500-seat, living monument to a time before bubble waffles and Instagram-first openings.

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Chef Normah Abd Hamid and her family team offer a Malaysian comfort menu that makes the restaurant one of the best in the city from a nook of a unit in Queensway Market. Sour, hot assam pedas; roti to rival London’s King in Euston; and beef rendang or nasi lemak to go alongside. Normah’s is quaint and Normah is brilliant; this remains one of central London’s best restaurants to visit with a small group of friends and one to take out-of-towners visiting the city.

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20 Crowd-Pleasing Restaurants for Group Dinners in London

Mayfair’s Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Gymkhana is one of a few places in London that manages to straddle the line between celebrity hype and quality cooking. Tandoori masala lamb chops, chicken butter masala, and the trademark wild muntjac biryani remain standouts. The prices match the level of cooking and the surrounds, making this one for special occasions.

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40 Maltby St

A treasure. Unmoved by the comings and goings of trends, Bermondsey’s 40 Maltby St is a 40-cover answer to the question, pejorative as it may often be: What is British food? Steve Williams is a chef’s chef, cited by James Lowe, Brett Graham, and Florence Knight in their top five in the city. Raef Hodgson of distributor Gergovie Wines — which features low-intervention styles — runs the front of house without hubris. Check Instagram for the menu, which is always going to feature in-jokes and delicious dishes such as pork schnitzel with raw celeriac, mustard, and braised potatoes, onion, and thyme, or a chestnut and brown sugar meringue.

London’s Most Festive Mince Pies

Kaieteur Kitchen

Chef Faye Gomes’s peerless Guyanese market stall has relocated to Castle Square following the controversial demolition of Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre next to which Gomes had traded for 17 years. Check chef Gomes’s Instagram in advance for trademark, long-prepared, and slow-cooked traditional dishes like pepper pot, garlic pork, and cow foot souse. Or turn up for a surprise of dishes that draw on the many culinary influences and colonial legacies of Guyana: dal puri roti; pholourie; fried fish with tomato; potato, green mango, okra, and coconut curry; stewed brown chicken, which, like the pepper pot, is coloured and enriched with cassareep, a liquid extraction from cassava root, as well as clove and cinnamon; and stew pumpkin.

Saikei Chinese Restaurant

This vast restaurant dining room sits quite inexplicably on the ground floor of a Holiday Inn Express budget hotel just off the A102 on the south exit of the Blackwall Tunnel. But this is a destination dining room of tremendous pedigree, which is built for midweek and weekend lunches, preferably with large groups. A mid-length, high-quality dim sum menu features a must-try fried prawn and Chinese chive number that stakes a fair claim to being the best single-bite hot item in the city — a crispy, fatty, sweet, salty umami nugget. Among the noodle plates to share, king prawns are excellent, with the noodles taking on the requisite smoke from the wok, seasoned judiciously. Saikei is a close-to-perfect family and group dining experience.

Crisp Pizza

For the past 12 months or so, London has welcomed a style of pizza that’s closer to American slice-joint pies. It’s drier, and, well, crispier than the sloppier, saucier Neapolitan cousins that have dominated the London pizza scene for over a decade. The aptly named Crisp Pizza (for Crisp Street, ya know) is serving this style, on the well-done side ( don’t tell this guy ), with a range of classic toppings, like pepperoni with mozzarella and tomato, ’nduja, and “seasoned mushroom.” Right now, there’s a four-cheese calzone too, and it’s all available Wednesday and Thursday (evenings only), as well as Friday through to Sunday 1 p.m. until 9 p.m. at the Chancellors pub in Hammersmith. These guys call Parmesan “Parm,” which belies the back-to-basics brilliance of the overall enterprise.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Crisp Pizza W6 (@crisppizzaw6)

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In his guide to the city’s best East African restaurants , Riaz Phillips says Adulis’s “palatial setting has to make it one of the finest east African and Eritrean restaurants in the capital.” The dark wooden fixtures give every meal here a sense of occasion. The restaurant is well-suited to solo or group dining, with a menu offering selections for one, two, four, and eight persons, and excellent options for vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters. Look out for kwanta fitfit, smoked, dried beef with green chilli and injera; zilzl assa, grilled red snapper seasoned with Eritrean herbs; and the entire range of vegetarian and vegan stews, comprising spinach, beans, chickpeas, and lentils, all eaten with more of the excellent, subtly tangy, and moreish injera.

The second branch for this south London institution, Nandine — “kitchen” in Kurdish — is run by Pary Baban, her husband Pola, and sons Rang and Raman. During the day it serves a menu of brunch dishes, meze, and intricate pastries. Technicoloured and abundant meze platters served in the evening include kubba (minced beef and rice patties), onion dolma, and qawarma. Pastries like borek, made with a Kurdish pastry called galgali, and baklava are not to be missed.

The 12 Essential Vegan Restaurants in London

Possibly London’s best Jamaican jerk shop. On the edge of Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park, with a smoky aroma detectable from many hundred metres, this stark room is dedicated to one thing: immaculately, judiciously seasoned protein grilled without remorse. The age of these oil drums and the time-honoured expertise of chef Murphy Lawrence and his team result in jerked pork belly, chicken, goat, and even lobster, all penetrated with smoke and lifted by allspice, Scotch bonnet, and salt. Tasty Jerk is a heady, intoxicating, and remarkably good-value eating experience.

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London restaurant reviews

The newest restaurants, reviewed by our critics

Our ultimate goal is to connect you directly with your city’s best chefs, bartenders and makers. Let us sift through the hype and shine a spotlight on must-try destinations that might not be on your radar just yet.  Join us as we set out to rediscover our cities together – one meal at a time. 

Catch up with the reviews you may have missed. Updated regularly, this is our archive of 'recent reviews'. For the bang-up-to-date ‘current reviews’, check out the pages for either  restaurants or bars .

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Latest London restaurant reviews

• 4 out of 5 stars
• Restaurants
• price 3 of 4

Sometimes, almost everything about a restaurant works. Josephine is that restaurant – so pitch perfect and so on brand that it could be a movie set – preferably one with Catherine Deneuve flitting about while sweetly sloshing vino. Josephine is pretty and cute, but maintains an edge of robust Gallic urgency; all is in its right place, from the starched white tablecloths to the burgundy leather banquettes, elegant taper candles and walls plastered with far too many Toulouse Lautrec-esque prints. If Disneyland were to craft a ‘wine-sodden French bistro’ this would be the blueprint. If we could change anything? We’d simply get it the hell out of Fulham. We’re only a few months into 2024, but Josephine’s owner and founder Claude Bosi is already having quite the year. Brooklands, the storied chef’s very pricey and peculiarly Concorde-themed restaurant at the equally pricey Peninsula hotel – was just awarded two Michelin stars, despite only opening at the end of 2023. Josephine then, is his second new restaurant in six months, and you’ll find it 15-minutes walk away from Bibendum, his other two-star Michelin restaurant. There’s also the lavish Socca which he opened a year ago in Mayfair. When, we ask, does the man sit down? Flavours are as full-bodied as a ruddy-faced Serge Gainsbourg after a Syrah binge In comparison to the others, Bossi’s latest opening is low key. It’s a small – perhaps too small, going by the way I have to shift our tightly packed two-top table and almost wipe

From the same minds who brought you Ducksoup in Soho and Little Duck The Picklery in Dalston comes a new venture with its sights set on France. Camille is unassuming at first, with classic French dishes using local British produce (you’re in Borough Market, after all), lots of wine and a packed chalkboard of daily specials. But once you’re a course or two in, windows steamy with condensation and a few glasses deep – perhaps fighting the temptation to run your finger over those last drops of sauce – you might as well be on a backstreet of Montmartre as opposed to Southwark. The interiors are rustic, but not gaudy; bottles are displayed on the walls, candles dot the tables and the whole place hums with a just-loud-enough bustle. And the food? It delivers. We started with oysters and rhubarb (very fresh), before the smaller starter plates arrived: zesty shredded crab toast with garlic and bisque and gorgeously tender pig’s head schnitzel with a crunchy, bitter puntarelle salad. You might as well be on a backstreet of Montmartre as opposed to Southwark A highlight was the Jerusalem artichoke with serious bite, all disguised in a joyous, fluffy cloud of Lincolnshire poacher cheese. When it comes to mains, prepare yourself for some serious meat damage. The langoustine cassoulet – a stew of flesh in a deep, rich trad sauce – was topped with two delicate but disappointingly slim pink morsels. The pork special was on the dryer side, but saved by a swimming pool of velvety shallot a

• 5 out of 5 stars
• price 2 of 4

Good restaurants are easy to describe. The food is served at the right temperature. Staff don’t roll their eyes when you ask what a ‘boquerone’ is. Ordering wine by the bottle doesn’t necessitate a remortgage. All of these things suggest a place is decent, and can be articulated plainly with words and pictures. Great restaurants, however, are harder to describe. With greatness ‘quality’ is a given. There has to be some other ineffable presence that remains constant day in, day out. We love great restaurants for reasons that are illogical, personal and elusive. Trullo is a great restaurant. There are days when I think it might be the greatest. Trullo’s reputation is built on consistently excellent food and its expertly calibrated atmosphere The Highbury trattoria hasn’t got any flashy gimmicks or TikTok-friendly marketing ploys. Its upstairs and downstairs dining rooms have no obvious ‘features’ (although by this point its net half-curtains are at risk of becoming iconic), and the well-trained staff aren’t heavy-handed or dressed in corduroy workwear. Instead, Trullo’s reputation is built on consistently excellent food and its expertly calibrated atmosphere, neither of which have slipped an iota in the restaurant’s 13 year history. Bravissimo, lads.  Trullo isn’t all about the pasta, but at the same time it is all about the pasta. The primi section of the menu is a stockpile of reasonably priced, culinary WMDs. On our most recent visit we forewent their legendary beef shin ra

• West African

Akoko, the smooth-as-silk Fitzrovia restaurant that glided onto the London restaurant scene, blew everyone’s mind and then won a Michelin star, has spawned a child under the arches of Borough Market.  Akara replicates its parent restaurant’s ingenious and critically acclaimed take on west African cuisine and brings it to a more casual, less-intense place. Off the bat: going to Akara isn’t as good as going to Akoko. Which is like saying seeing Prince perform in an arena isn’t as good as seeing Prince perform in your living room. One of those things is more feasible than the other. At this stage getting into the rightfully popular Akoko is a task fit for Restaurant Hercules. Not to mention, you might not feel like dropping hundreds of pounds on its tasting-menu-or-death sole option. At Akara - get this - you can choose what you want to eat.  Special shout out to a coy side of plantain cubes, all jumbled up with lookalike pieces of grilled octopus And you may well choose to start with a few of the titular akara. It’d be lazy to call them ‘the west African bao’, but that would give the uninitiated an idea of what to expect. Fluffy-yet-cakey balls, delicately fried and perched magisterially on stone cubes, each one bifurcated then ladened with stuff like prawn, ox cheek, mushrooms and scallops. Like most things Akoko-related, they’re accompanied by a bit of psychedelic scotch bonnet sauce. Like most things Akoko-related, said sauce works as a kind of culinary particle accelerator

Silver Birch

The Silver Birch was unlucky enough to launch in 2020, right before you-know-what. Four years later, and it still feels like a newly-launched spot, relatively unknown beyond Chiswick. But there are sure signs that that’s about to change.   Led by young chef Nathan Cornwell, the restaurant is vying for Chiswick’s second Michelin star (the first being La Trompette), following his celebrated stints at Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and The Barn at Moor Hall in the Lake District. The interior is a neat canvas of neutral, wooden tones, with exposed brick, hefty aircon ducts, and delicate placements of dried flowers. It’s unfussy, soft and minimalist, giving plenty of space for the spectacular, playful dishes which came our way.  Beautifully soft, mildly sweet Devonshire crab, was hidden under a layer of foam and piquant discs of pickled Granny Smith First up: an adorable array of Alice in Wonderland-style amuse bouche, which featured a miniature version of its Devon smoked eel with pink fir potatoes and pickled leek and rich, velvety parmesan sablés with blue cheese mousse. Then, layered curls of delightfully bright green lovage butter embellished with purple petals to go with some Guinness sourdough – a warm, comforting slab of stodge that only comes from home-cooked bread.  My starter was the star of the evening, so magnificent in fact, that I forgot it was, technically, only the first course. Beautifully soft, mildly sweet Devonshire crab, was hidden under a layer of foam

Real Beijing Food House

Going for a meal at Food House is to choose between parallel universes. Option one is family style sharing in the brightly-lit, carpeted ground floor where you’ll select from an extensive menu of Northern Chinese dishes. Alternatively, option two promises the upstairs dining room, reserved for those enjoying an all-you-can-eat hotpot experience. This floor has a completely different ambience: dramatic red wallpaper, dim spotlights and mirrors casting shadows, all providing an atmospheric backdrop to the mini steam tornadoes rising from pots on each dark oak table. The headliner was whole roast sea bass, soaked in radioactively-red chilli oil and adorned with lotus root slices and Sichuan peppercorns During my visit, I confused their system by booking a table for hotpot – giving me access to the exclusive upstairs room – but at the last minute, decided to go for the cooked dishes instead, after finding the menu too intriguing to miss. I was grateful to be allowed to stay in the hotpot room, which is where the real action was, akin to being at a chaotic family reunion. The waiters were working at maximum speed (one became visibly annoyed when I tried to ask a question: ‘look, just tell me which dish you want!’), with plates charging out of the kitchen every few minutes. Despite a massive 19-page menu of options, I went for the Sichuanese classics, including the pleasantly savoury mapo tofu, which was not too sweet – a balance other outlets can often get wrong. The cucumber s

• Mediterranean
• Clerkenwell

Some restaurants are born lucky. Before the doors of Morchella even opened, it already had north London’s nibbling classes on side, thanks to links with Newington Green’s chi-chi neighbourhood eatery, Perilla. If you like Perilla (and many people do), it’s pretty much a given that you’ll be tripping over youself to visit Morchella, which marks the second outing for Perilla’s chef-owner Ben Marks and restaurateur Matthew Emmerson, who’ve teamed up with chef Daniel Fletcher for this astute, three-pronged attack on Clerkenwell’s dining scene.  Morchella is the proper name of the morel mushroom – the one with honeycomb-style fungal flesh so densely packed that if you stare at it long enough the logo for a Norwegian black metal band magically appears – and the space itself is broadly similar to Perilla. Both occupy prime corner real estate in desirable locales, but Morchella ramps up the aesthetic to XXL proportions. A divine blood orange portokalopita came with salty slithers of black olive tucked away inside the syrup spattered cake. Go big or go home seems to have been the designer’s brief. Situated in a former Victorian bank, there are sky-high ceilings, marble columns and large canvases of unobtrusive art, while huge street-facing windows put Morchella out of the running for both illicit affairs and preliminary job interviews with MI6. There’s a muted, olive-green, coat-style chore uniform for the staff (you can take the restaurant out of N16, but you can’t take the N16 out

• Notting Hill
• price 4 of 4

To enter the kingdom of Juno, you must weave your way through what must be one of London’s most nerve-fraying assault courses.  First, traverse Notting Hill’s rom-com worthy backstreets without falling in love with a floppy haired gent from a posh bookshop and do your best to find Los Mochis. Granted, this bit isn’t too hard. Once you’ve spotted this elaborate garish Japanese-meets-Mexican restaurant, you must try and not be overly distracted by Dia De Los Muertos shrines to Yoda from Star Wars, humongous cartoon robot murals and the general feeling that Mr Brainwash might jump out at any moment brandishing a can of neon pink paint and imploring that you do a mezcal shot with him. This skilled duo delivered banger after banger of perfectly formed fish dishes, like back-to-back DJs at south London rave spot Venue MOT If you’ve managed to get this far then bliss – and a more muted colour palette – awaits. Make it to the back end of Los Mochis’ upstairs dining room and you’ll be guided into Juno; a supremely chill wood-panelled space that fits just six diners, making it either the smallest omakase counter in the UK or a strangely seductive panic room. Once inside we were greeted by Los Mochis’ congenial exec chef Leonard Tanyag (formerly of Zuma), and head sushi chef Han (Nobu, Roka). For the next two hours, this skilled duo delivered banger after banger of perfectly formed fish dishes, like back-to-back DJs at the culinary equivalent of intimate south London rave spot Venue M

Dear Jackie

• 3 out of 5 stars

Hotel restaurants are tricky characters – some can be quite forgettable, while others manage to completely outshine the hotel. And somehow, Dear Jackie manages to do both. Set in the basement of the new Broadwick Soho, the atmospheric restaurant epitomises the hotel’s bold and playful persona. Grinning doormen in bowler hats and bowties (think The Grand Budapest Hotel) whisk you through the glossy pink front door, escorting you through buzzing Bar Jackie (a more casual all-day eatery on the ground floor) and down to the mysterious Dear Jackie.  They’ve tried to make it feel like you’re being given access to an exclusive member’s club here – and it works. There’s a thrill as you descend the dark neon-lit stairs and emerge into the glamorous dining room with its crimson silk walls and Sicilian ceramic table tops. It’s pleasingly kitsch, flamboyant and fabulous, like a more sophisticated version of the Big Mamma restaurants The whole interior is like a maximalist’s wet dream: floral patterned cosy banquets, hand-painted plates all over the walls, candy-striped lamps in Murano glass, red velvet chairs and lavish golden trimmings. And be sure to pay a visit to the red terrazzo toilets. It’s pleasingly kitsch, flamboyant and fabulous, like a more sophisticated version of the Big Mamma restaurants. The music is loud, the lights are low, the friendly waiters are overdressed, the corners are full of cosy dates and there’s a sense that diners are here to have a Big Night Out.  Alas, t

64 Goodge Street

• Goodge Street

I hope you’re hungry, because 64 Goodge Street wants to feed you up good. So nourishing and potent is its essence, I imagine people walking past its sleek frontage might feel full from a culinary contact high. This elegant Fitzrovia bistro bangs out old-school, hearty dishes, proper meals. As you’d expect, pan sauces at this place appear to be sacrosanct. I can imagine all the chefs hanging out in the open-fronted kitchen, taking turns to show off their most banging reductions.  ‘Maaate, the opacity on that consommé is fucking sick, not going to lie.’ The preponderance of sick jus can only mean one thing: French fine dining is back, baby. But this time some of the chefs have tattoos and moustaches. Escargot orbs were smushed with bacon, fried in breadcrumbs and served like aristocratic Scotch eggs 64GS does what it does with aplomb. The night’s show-stopper was an unctuous seafood bisque, boasting a depth of flavour that bottomed out somewhere in the planet’s core. In its centre, a single volcano-like ravioli object, erupting a magmatic plume of crab meat and apple. Hyper-rich boudin noir cylinders - like hockey pucks made from the world’s most extra black pudding - looked uncharacteristically demure served alongside a trio of contrasting smears. Part dish, part artery-clogging playset; every carefully assembled mouthful a new experience. There were brazen anachronisms, too. Caper-studded remoulade with ham, and smoked salmon with blinis both totally justified their being br

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Lovage Jesmond

Fitou's thai restaurant.

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Sam & Jak

Higher ground, origin city, story cellar, 64 goodge street, the kirkstyle inn and sportsman’s rest, burnt smokehouse, the three horseshoes, straker’s, 2 fore street, homies on donkeys, lir: native seafood, speedboat bar, the halfway at kineton, alexandros greek restaurant & deli, beckford canteen, crisp pizza w6, matsudai ramen, restaurant st. barts, the woolpack, bouchon racine, the sportsman club, the black bull inn, the barley mow, tsiakkos & charcoal, kuro eatery, the dog & gun inn.

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1321 Argyle Street, Glasgow; gloriosaglasgow.com  

I first encountered "the best focaccia I have ever eaten" in 2018, at Glasgow restaurant Alchemilla, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . Rosie Healey was its head chef then; now she's moved to nearby Gloriosa. Her focaccia is as good as ever, with a crumb "both springy and chewy", and a crust that's "crisp and golden and just lightly oiled". But then, Healey is a chef "simply sodden with good taste". As befits a graduate of Yotam Ottolenghi's kitchens, her cooking is vegetable-led. A whole globe artichoke is "drenched with a brilliant green chive butter, as though draped in the very essence of chlorophyll". A disc of flatbread is "smeared with an uncompromising chilli butter and then smothered by smoked aubergine, yoghurt and fresh mint". Reasonably priced small plates dominate – the most expensive is £10 – but there are four larger dishes, including "dense, meaty" venison sausages with wilted greens and lentils. I visited Gloriosa with a group of food-obsessed friends, and they were "absorbed by the details" of Healey's cooking. "She can cook, can't she," said one, spooning panna cotta into her mouth. "Oh yes, she really can." Small plates £6-£10; large plates £16-£25; desserts £5-£14. 

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115 St George's Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne; lovagejesmond.co.uk  

In spite of the "cost-of-living crisis" and all the economic uncertainty, "brave, risk-taking self-believers" are still opening restaurants in Britain, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . One such new opening is Lovage, in the fashionable Newcastle suburb of Jesmond, which specialises in "seasonal, Mediterranean-style" dishes that are "delicate, exact, good and honest", and which sometimes include vegetables grown in the owners' garden. Our meal starts with a couple of snacks: a single oyster with a slice of gooseberry and lovage oil; and hummus "made fragrant with mint and courgette flower", served with "shards" of Italian crackers. Then come a pair of "mystically melting" soft-shell crabs, served with a "circle of dreamlike aioli". Confit duck sits on a round dollop of polenta, with cavalo nero and gravy: a "beautifully plated" – and delicious – dish. The service at Lovage has a "professional grace", and the wine list is "nicely priced"; in short, it gets a "massive thumbs up". Five-course lunch: £53.50, excluding drinks and service. 

112-116 Vine Court, London E1

This Somali place in a basement in Whitechapel "operates on its own terms", said Jimi Famurewa in the Evening Standard . Opening hours are "capricious" (I have twice arrived to find it mysteriously shut) and the waiters "can be hard to flag down". But set aside these flaws, and you're left with something "truly remarkable". The incredibly good value home-style cooking provides a "viscerally brilliant" introduction to the "commingled food cultures of the Horn of Africa". There's biryani and "lavishly sauced" spaghetti (the latter a relic of Italian colonial rule in Somalia), but what keeps me returning is the £14 lamb: "thrumming with spice", and "edged in wobbling pockets of creamy fat", it has an "ethereal, collapsing tenderness". It isn't hard to spot an Al Kahf newbie: they'll be "muttering in rapturous disbelief". Meal for two, plus drinks, about £30. 

Arch S12, Water Lane, Hawley Wharf, London NW1; grassfedrestaurant.co.uk  

Paul Foster is the owner of Salt in Stratford-upon-Avon, which specialises in "fine-dining dishes", said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . Evidently, in planning his next opening, he "cast a glance at London town and decided that he needs a place with less frippery". Hence the "sweetly simple" concept at this compact space in Camden: top-quality beef, cooked over coal, served with a selection of sides. While GrassFed won't win any awards for novelty, I am confident it will succeed because it executes that concept so well. Starters are the "perfect warm-up act": toasted sourdough, served with beef fat-laced garlic butter, is "excellent", while roasted bone marrow has a "glorious texture". For mains, we have two cuts of beef – rump and bavette – both of which are "just right". Service is competent and cheerful, and the wine list "tidy". My one niggle is that there aren't any puddings (there weren't that day at any rate). So my "word to the wise" would be: "store some little pots au chocolat or lemon possets in the fridge". Two-course lunch for two: £116.06, excluding drinks and service.

2 Mill Road, Cambridge; fin-boys.com  

At first sight, this Cambridge restaurant seems like a "modest venture", said Jay Rayner in The Observer . "The space is monkishly unadorned", and the open kitchen behind the "deep-varnished wooden counter" has "barely more kit" than mine at home. Appearances, however, can be deceptive: Fin Boys is a restaurant driven by "obsession". The two cooks, Richard Stokes and Jay Scrimshaw, adhere to the philosophy of whole fish "butchery" espoused by Australian chef Josh Niland. They source the finest, most sustainable fish and seafood – bluefin tuna from a farm in Galicia; hand-dived scallops from Orkney – and ensure that nothing goes to waste. Many dishes are "boosted with Japanese umami-rich flavours". Prawn toast has a base of Japanese milk bread, and is "showered with furikake, that bold seasoning mix of ground seaweed". Red mullet fillets are served on a heap of rainbow chard cooked in the restaurant's own XO sauce – "a brew of dried seafood, ground mushrooms, miso and soy". Combining "inventive cookery" with "seriously good ingredients", this place is "completely compelling". Snacks and starters: £7-£18; mains: £32-£38; desserts: £8.

1-3 Dalgarno Gardens, London W10; fitourestaurant.co.uk  

The menu at this small, family-run Thai place in west London may seem standard, said Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday . But the "cooking is anything but". It's partly the quality of the ingredients that makes it stand out (try the "magnificent" grilled freshwater prawns); but it is also the fact that "they make their pastes fresh". The results are a world away from the "drab, deep-fried, sickly sweet norm" that characterises a lot of Thai cooking in this country. "Crisp and fresh" tom yum zings with "joyously sprightly acidity"; larb gai (minced chicken salad) is "as invigorating as you'll find anywhere". Milder dishes are fantastic too, such as "mellow and softly sweet" stir-fried duck with lemongrass and onion. In short, Fitou's is a "pulse-quickening taste of true Thai delight". About £25 a head.

The Portrait by Richard Corrigan

National Portrait Gallery, London WC2; theportraitrestaurant.com  

I have always liked Richard Corrigan, the Irish chef who "famously helmed Lindsay House in Soho and brought Bentley's Oyster Bar back from the grave", said Tim Hayward in the FT . His latest venture is on the top floor of the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery , and it's a belter. A starter of artichoke, cock crab and kombu – the artichoke dismembered and arranged on a platter, its heart "plastered with a stupendous amount of white crab meat" – is "perhaps the most visually striking signature dish in London for a decade". Snails are so often "rubbery little garlic vehicles", but here they are "plump and well nourished", and entirely at home in a buttery casserole. Halibut is perfectly "à point, set like a precious stone in a sea of lobster broth". Syrian rice pudding is a miraculous creation – "a little tumulus of saffron-scented short-grain rice, run through with pistachio paste". Corrigan's secret is to take the finest ingredients and then apply the "highest-level craft skills" to them. The results are "absolutely cracking". Starters: £12-£22; mains: £24-£34; desserts: £10-£14.

2 Cricklade Street, Cirencester; samandjak.co.uk  

"From 2019, and throughout the ravages of Covid", Sam Edwards and Jak Doggett ran Upton Firehouse, a much-loved barbecue restaurant in a "broad shed" in Burford, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . Last year, they moved to Cirencester, and opened this "unpretentious but beguiling little bistro". The menu is short and there are some safe options (steak and chips; grilled chicken breast), but there are also flashes of "pizzazz". Rough-cut trout tartare is mixed with capers and cornichons, and "laid with beads of trout roe that burst, oily and rich, against the roof of your mouth". Lemon sole slips from the bone "as if it simply can't wait to get its kit off", yet "retains bite and tension". There's a knowledgeable traditionalism to the cooking here: desserts include St Émilion au chocolat, a sweet terrine "the colour of dark leather" that featured in Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking. As my companion observes, midway through our meal, this is food "prepared by people who give a toss". Starters: £8-£15; mains: £16-£37.50; desserts: £5-£8.

New York Street, Manchester; highergroundmcr.co.uk  

Being "long-limbed", I often struggle to get truly comfortable in restaurants, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . Fortunately, that wasn't a problem at Higher Ground in Manchester, even though I sat at the bar: the "high-backed stools" and generous overhang ensured I felt completely "at ease". And a good thing too, because I wouldn't have wanted anything to distract me from the brilliant cooking. Crab on toast was "absolutely, bell-ringingly delicious"; pea fritters under a "snowy pile of parmesan" were likewise "perfect finger food". For my main, I had hand-rolled pasta with Dexter beef ragù and Spenwood cheese: a "marvellous, generous, umami-filled treat". Perhaps I took things too far by having poached plums and milk ice cream for pudding, accompanied by a "fabulously dry pudding wine". I didn't sleep well that night – but sometimes I have to "suffer for my art". Three-course lunch for two: £75, excluding drinks and service.

29 Milsom Place, Bath; thegaffrestaurant.co.uk

The centre of Bath is a riot of chain restaurants, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph : every second glance, you'll spot an Ivy, a Bill's or a Rosa's Thai. So it's a relief to discover – in the city's beautiful Georgian heart – a place that's unapologetically "indie". Walk into The Gaff, and you're confronted by the sight of "tattooed stove creatures" plying their trade. The menu is also "bang on trend", with sharing plates and "dirty" dishes, such as corn ribs and fried chicken. What's clear is that the "tattooed lads" know how to cook: the food here is "seriously top notch". There's "rich and exotic" Sri Lankan pork curry; "fabulous stone bass" served with a bean stew that would "hold its own against the best of southwest France"; "well-executed duck" with a rich faggot and peas; and a "simply fabulous pud of dark chocolate banoffee with sour cream". The one disappointment is the decor, which is a bit "too Caesar-salad-and-sauvignon-blanc" to be a match for the gutsy, original cooking. Dinner for four: £114, excluding drinks and service.

12 West Smithfield, London EC1; origincity.co.uk  

This "nose-to-tail" restaurant, on the south side of London's Smithfield meat market, is possibly the most traditional I've reviewed this year, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . The "comfortable" dining room, with its large tables and non-intrusive music, has a "1990s power-lunch vibe". And head chef Graham Chatham, formerly of Rules, treats his ingredients with "old-school care". But Origin City doesn't need to break new ground, because it's "doing something rather less celebrated: it's cooking up a total storm". Homemade charcuterie – coppa, salami Milanese, ham – has impressive "piggy power", and comes with toast and "ludicrously intense" 'nduja butter. Triple-cooked chips are "crunchy and golden and speak of time and effort" – and "the cooking of stone bass is spectacular": while the "creamy-white flesh slips apart" easily, the skin is so crisp it "makes a rustling noise when a knife-edge is dragged across it". It's all good value too – especially the "carefully arranged wine list", which "barely manages to get above £40". This place is "nothing short of magnificent". Starters £11-£15; mains £21-£42; desserts £8-£10.

17 Neal's Yard, London WC2; storycellar.co.uk  

This Covent Garden restaurant is the "younger sibling" of the Michelin two-starred Restaurant Story near Borough Market, said Tom Parker-Bowles in The Mail on Sunday . While the original (which is currently closed for refurbishment) is one of London's most ambitious restaurants, this one has more of a bistro feel: there are "lusciously buttery" red leather banquettes, a bar "topped in gleaming zinc", and an open kitchen serving immaculately cooked steak, dover sole, and a "magnificent" rotisserie chicken for two. With skin that is "crisp and burnished", and served with a clear, intense gravy, it's a "proper bird, with depth and flavour". But there are also some more "original dishes" on the menu – notably "bosky and boozy" snail bolognese on toast. My one reservation about this place is that the wine list is a bit on the expensive side; in every other respect, "Story Cellar is a class act". About £45 a head.

16-18 Beak Street, London W1; mountainbeakstreet.com

Welsh-born chef Tomos Parry made his name by turning “glamorous urbanites” onto the “primeval” pleasures of Basque-accented, open-fired cooking, said Jimi Famurewa in the Evening Standard . He did this first at Brat in Shoreditch, and then at its offshoot, Brat x Climpson’s Arch. Now, to great fanfare, he has opened Mountain, a “vast, two-floored” restaurant in Soho housed in a site formerly occupied by Byron Burger. As at his other outlets, the menu features several sharing platters – including a “magnificent whole John Dory”. This is impressively sensuous cooking, but what “consistently took my breath away” was the “hidden complexity in so many dishes”. Citric grilled vine leaves were anchored by an “extraordinary housemade curd and girolle mix”. Raw sobrasada (Mallorcan spiced sausage) was served on toast with honey and slivered guindilla peppers – creating bites of “piquant genius”. Rousing and unforgettable, Mountain deserves “the fuss and attention currently engulfing it”. Meal for two plus drinks about £170.

St Mellion, Saltash, Cornwall; crocadon.farm

Remember the word Crocadon, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . “And remember the name Dan Cox .” Because this restaurant, bakery and micro-brewery in Cornwall, which Cox opened earlier this year, feels like a “distillation of some of the most exciting developments in the UK food and drink scene”. Almost all the produce derives from Cox’s “modest” 120-acre farm. The beer and cider are home-brewed; salads are grown “using the principles of permaculture”; even the crockery is made by crushing up and incinerating the “remnants of your lobster and crab, your lamb bones and scallop shells”. And while Cox has succumbed to the fashion for tasting menus (nothing’s perfect), his cooking is hugely “confident” and “imaginative”. Mushroom parfait is a “marvel of richness and air, grounded with a powder of wild garlic”. Raw pollock is paired with strips of kohlrabi and the “tangy leaf of a herb called Mexican marigold”. For pud, sorbet and herbs are “presented like an Eton mess”. You read it here first: Crocadon is “magnificent, original and quite breathtaking”. Sunday lunch for two: £90, plus drinks and service.

London W1; 64goodgestreet.co.uk  

This new opening in Fitzrovia is the latest outpost of the Woodhead Restaurant Group, which owns such “reassuringly brilliant places” as Clipstone and The Quality Chop House, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . This time, the group has taken over a former travel agency and “reimagined it as an elegant French bistro”. In the compact and “gloriously quiet” dining room, we are served a series of superbly executed French classics. Comté and black-truffle gougeres are “earthy, doughnutty mouthfuls of loveliness”. Saddle of lamb comes with a vibrant sauce paloise – a bearnaise made with mint rather than tarragon – and for pud there’s a “very good slice of gâteau marjolaine, a chocolatey stack of meringue, ganache and hazelnut” invented by the legendary Fernand Point. 64 Goodge Street only opened in August – but it has “hit the ground running”. From about £65 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service.

6A Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds; larkrestaurant.co.uk

Housed in a building that was once a bus shelter, this 20-seat restaurant in Bury St Edmunds is “not a glamorous space”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . “Instead, all the glamour is on the plate.” The “smallish plates” that emanate from the “tiny kitchen” startle with their ingenuity. Crunchy radishes are served with a “silky quenelle of whipped lardo”. A courgette flower is stuffed with baba ghanoush before being “expertly tempuraed”. Terrific hash browns are served two ways: either topped with a tartare of muntjac and radicchio, or with the garlicky “wonder-dip that is mojo rojo ”. More impressive still is the “special” – rabbit shank and black pudding pie – which turns out to be the “love child of a wellington and a scotch egg”, and is a “masterclass in classical cooking”. You could use all sorts of words to describe Lark – ambitious, clever, hugely enjoyable – but I’ll go for just one. “Like that rabbit shank pie, it’s special.” Snacks £2.50-£7; plates £11-£28; desserts £10-£12.

57 Newington Green, Islington, London N16; cadetlondon.com

“I’d travel anywhere for a good charcutier,” said Tim Hayward in the FT . And so when I heard about an interesting one in north London, in the basement of a wine bar, I knew I couldn’t stay away. And happily, the charcuterie I was served at Cadet exceeded “anything else I’ve eaten in London”. The man responsible is George Jephson, who has “worked around food most of his career and, inspired by time in France, taught himself charcuterie from scratch”. His pork rillettes – served with sweet-sour cucumber instead of the usual gherkins – were a “kind of apogee”, being of a texture that allowed the “pork-flavoured fat” to “smear onto the bread like clotted cream”. I have long believed that pâté en croûte – layers of terrine encased in pastry – is “the test of a good charcuterie”: Jephson’s version was exceptional. Cadet isn’t just for charcuterie lovers: there’s also a daily changing menu, cooked by former St. John chef Jamie Smart. Just one dish was available on the night I visited – lamb shank with peas and mint – but it was outrageously good. Cadet may not know whether it’s a wine bar, charcutier or restaurant, but I am certain that “I must have more”. Starters £4-£6; small plates £8-£22; desserts £5-£9.

1 Bowood House, Empson Street, London E3; polentina.com

Having lunch at Polentina in Bow, east London, is a “rather peculiar” experience, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . The place doubles as the “staff canteen of the sustainable fashion factory ApparelTasker”. And so I ate surrounded by factory staff, looking out on “a load of sewing machines”. But the food is “wonderful”. A single Sorrento tomato stuffed with herby carnaroli rice has sweetly “yielding” flesh while remaining “supportive of its innards”. Spaghetti with bottarga is a delicious “tangle” of pasta, garlic and fish roe. Long-stewed bobby beans are “draped over very good, fresh ricotta”. Polentina, which offers a longer menu in the evenings, will inevitably get “slicker and more famous”. So go soon, because “like the Sex Pistols’ first gig in the Common Room at St Martin’s College of Art, it’s good to experience a new thing when it’s weird and unsettling”. From about £25 a head, plus drinks and service.

Slaggyford, Northumberland; theksi.co.uk

It is rare, in this day and age, to be offered a three-course set menu for £30, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . But that’s what you get at this “astonishingly reasonably priced” inn in the North Pennines, which has recently been “gorgeously refurbished”. It’s the only pub for miles around, and “word is clearly out”: nosing through “recent Tripadvisor chunterings”, I read that some locals have already been five times for lunch. The menu is niftily balanced between “ornate” and hearty – appealing both to foodies and lovers of pub grub. Berkswell sheep’s-cheese mousse is served in “delicate dollops”, with Northumberland honey and tiny mushroom caps. Stewed beef cheek is soft and rich, with a “walloping lump of creamy mash”. But there’s also cod and chips with “perfectly seasoned” batter, and sirloin steak with cavolo nero and chips. The Kirkstyle Inn is testament to the power of a good restaurant to bring “joy to its community” – and well worth making a detour for. From about £35 a head à la carte; set three-course menu £30.

161a Midland Road, Leyton, London E10; instagram.com/burnt.smokehouse

The pitmaster at Burnt Smokehouse is the fabulously named Tiberius Tudor, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . Tudor, who is Muslim, spent two years working in smokehouses in Texas – including the legendary Franklin Barbecue – and decided that there was scope for a halal barbecue joint in his corner of northeast London. The place had only been going a few weeks when I visited, but already had the “kind of buzz you get when somewhere no one knew they needed has opened”. Lamb shoulder – cooked out back in a pellet smoker and sold (like the brisket) by the 100g – was “crisped and tender”, and demanded to be pulled apart by “fat-slicked fingers”. A “very good burger” grilled on a plancha consisted of “two seared patties with a serious depth of flavour”, dollops of grilled onions, house sauce and homemade dill pickles, plus “a coating of American burger cheese”. Eating here will get you messy – it’s “an eight-napkin-three-shirt-oh-sod-it kind of place” – but you won’t regret paying a visit. Meats £2.50-£10.50/100g; sauces and sides £1-£6; dessert £5. Walk-ins only. 

Batcombe, Somerset; thethreehorseshoesbatcombe.co.uk

The Somerset village of Batcombe, near fashionable Bruton, is a “place of excruciatingly pretty cottages, grand houses and the smartest-looking playground I have ever seen”, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . At its heart stands The Three Horseshoes, a pub built in the 17th century, which has recently been “tarted up with a deft and subtle touch”. Overseeing the food is Margot Henderson, co-owner of Rochelle Canteen in Shoreditch (and wife of St John founder Fergus Henderson). And it is what you’d expect from her: “no nonsense” and “generally very good”. Watercress soup is “nothing simpler than the sublime taste of an English spring”, while mince on toast is a “nightmare of school food” elevated to “dreamlike status”. I also “triumphed” with my main – skate wing with onions and leeks and capers – while the treacle tart for pud would have swept the board at any English fête. Dinner for two: £86.50 excluding drinks and service.

Unit 3, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London SE1; lagambalondon.com

For a long time, it has been all but impossible to get a good meal on London’s South Bank, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . For a place that prides itself on its “eclectic and diverting” cultural scene, the food on offer has been decidedly mediocre. Happily, however, things are changing. The team behind the “terrific” Marksman pub in Hackney recently opened Lasdun inside the National Theatre. Now comes this “pleasing take on the Spanish repertoire” from the team behind Applebee’s fishmongers in Borough Market. Unsurprisingly, seafood is what La Gamba does best. Chipirones (baby squid) come in a “rustling and lacy skirt of batter” – a reminder of the platefuls of deep-fried seafood that “pour out of the tapas restaurants of Málaga”. Seafood rice is topped with prawns and mussels that have a “squeaky freshness”. But many of the non-fish dishes are impressive too – notably fried potatoes with nuggets of chorizo and a fried egg “slumped across the top”. What a refreshing change from the “dreary” chain restaurants that have dominated the area. Tapas £4.50-£15; large plates £19-£36.

91 Golborne Road, London W10; strakers.london

Thomas Straker, the eponymous chef-proprietor of this new Notting Hill restaurant, has become notorious for racking up millions of views on Instagram and TikTok, said Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday . That made me eager at first to avoid his restaurant, which I assumed would be “glib and ephemeral”. But when I finally went along, I discovered just how wrong I had been. Unlike most “social media mayflies”, Straker is the “real thing”, serving food that is “ballsy” and “often beautiful”. Our meal started with “puffy and blistered” flatbread, spread with creamy stracciatella and an intense tomato sauce. Monkfish crudo was “clean as a coastal breeze”, while a plate of fresh pappardelle with pork ragu was “gleefully light, yet with just the right amount of chew”; that dish came with an “eye-watering” price tag of £34. But mainly, there’s a “joyous generosity” to Straker’s food. He may have “cheekbones that could slice sashimi” – but he really knows how to cook. About £70 a head.

Mousehole, Cornwall; 2forestreet.co.uk

This tiny bistro-cum-café is as lovely as the Cornish village that it lives in, said Tanya Gold in The Spectator . So much so that it features in a well-loved children’s story: Michelle Cartlidge’s “The Mousehole Mice” features “a café particularly beloved by tourist mice”. Inside, it’s extremely pleasant: “subtle art” adorns the walls, there’s “absolutely no nautical-themed décor”, and there’s a delightfully secluded garden, which is a “rare thing in Mousehole”. The cooking, while simple, is exceedingly good. Chef Joe Wardell trained with Raymond Blanc, and he produces food “of the same vivid yet familiar kind” – essentially “home cooking, but idealised”. Think blue-cheese soufflé; crab soup with parmesan toast and rouille; and rice pudding with strawberry jam. There’s also a “good, well-priced breakfast”. In a part of Cornwall that has been largely “hollowed out” by tourism, places as “skilful” and “charming” as this are rare. Starters £8.25-£11; mains £16.50-£21.50.

686 High Road Leytonstone, London E11; homiesondonkeys.com

This Leytonstone taqueria isn’t a place that stands on ceremony, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . You don’t get cutlery – diners are instructed to “get messy” – and with its graffiti-strewn interior, it has the feel of a “suburban skate park”. But there’s one compelling reason to eat here: the “truly astonishingly good” tacos, all of which are “complex and lovingly made”. Take camarón enchilado, or king prawn tacos: “fat prawns in a heroic amount of garlic and chilli, served in a tomato base”. Equally impressive are the “smooth, intoxicating” refried beans, and the “top-class” guacamole. While tacos dominate the menu, there are normally a couple of specials. One in particular – slow-cooked, braised chuck flanked by wobbly bone marrow still in its bone – could feature on an end-of-year roundup of “debauched things that offer nothing-but-calories happiness”. You won’t get “bells, whistles and forelock-tugging” at Homies on Donkeys, but the food here is an outrageous treat. From about £12 a head, plus drinks and service.

The Marina, Coleraine, County Londonderry; nativeseafood.co.uk

On their website, the owners of this new fish restaurant in Coleraine, an hour’s drive northwest of Belfast, proclaim their commitment to “zero waste and sustainability”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . They also extol the virtues of fermenting, smoking and “whole-fish butchery”. While such “nerdiness is delightful”, it wouldn’t mean much if the food wasn’t good. Fortunately, it is “very good indeed”. A case in point is deep-fried hake “Kiev”: a “golden-brown barrel-shaped piece of beautifully cooked white fish”, from which oozes the “finest garlic butter known to humanity”. Or there’s monkfish sausage roll, its puff pastry “exquisitely laminated”, accompanied by a “thick fermented chilli ketchup with just the right bash of warming heat”. In every dish, the approach is inventive and thoughtful, “without being annoyingly so”. And for those who can’t get a table in the main restaurant, there’s a separate dining area on the deck outside, with its own street-food menu. In a region not renowned for its ambitious restaurants, Lir “deserves to thrive”. Starters £7.50-£8.50; mains £16-£29; desserts £7.50.

Upper Ground, South Bank London SE1; lasdunrestaurant.com

Although many have derided it as ugly and “brutalist”, I have always loved the National Theatre, Sir Denys Lasdun’s “masterwork” on the South Bank, said Tim Hayward in the Financial Times . So I was interested to try Lasdun, a restaurant on its upper level. And “to my utter delight”, it proved superb – and the perfect match for its surroundings. For not only is the dining room “breathtaking”, but the “austere but elegant” cooking feels wholly “in tune” with Lasdun’s vision. My meal started with black treacle sourdough and salted butter, followed by Norfolk leeks, asparagus, goat curd and hazelnuts, served with an impressive dressing. For my main, I opted for a dish of lobster, which tasted “so damn fresh” it might have just been pulled out of the Thames. One word of advice: don’t get to Lasdun too early; wait until the pre-theatre “rush has passed” to fully appreciate “excellent food”, and the “soul-nourishing architecture”. Starters £14-£24; mains £23-£26; desserts £11.

30 Rupert Street, London W1; speedboatbar.co.uk

This Thai restaurant on the edge of Soho is designed as a tribute to the bars found in Bangkok’s Chinatown, said Tom Parker Bowles in the Daily Mail . It looks the part, with its “mortuary-bright lights” and “utilitarian metal tables”. And the food is the real deal too, as you would expect from executive chef Luke Farrell – one of those rare Westerners who really understands Thai cookery. There are “vast raw prawns of impeccable quality”, served in an “elegantly fiery herb-flecked dressing”; and crispy chicken skins that come coated in zaep, a “salty, spicy, sour sort of seasoning that gets you reaching for the beer”. These snacks are followed by equally fine main dishes: an “astonishingly good pickled mustard green salad”, studded with slices of robust sausage, and “glorious, majestic suckling pig, the skin as brittle as a crème brûlée topping, the flesh lusciously tender”. Speedboat Bar may be a few thousand miles from Bangkok but, for a taste of the city’s flavours, you can’t do much better without hopping on a plane. About £30 a head.

Kineton, Guiting Power, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; thehalfwayatkineton.com

There was a time when visitors to this “lovely old Jacobean inn” in the Cotswolds were best to stick to beer and crisps, said Giles Coren in The Times . But now it is run by “two Big Boys of the Gloucestershire restaurant scene” – Nathan Eades and Liam Goff – and the food alone is “worth a very big detour”. Arriving there after a walk on a Sunday in April, we found the place “rammed” with locals tucking into such meaty delights as slow-cooked shoulder of Cornish lamb, and roast Herefordshire sirloin with braised chuck. I resisted these, and went for the veggie option: a mushroom and celeriac pie I’d spotted on the pub’s Instagram feed. And it proved “epochal”: a “shimmering golden dome” sitting on a “thick, creamy celeriac purée”, with dark mushroom gravy streaming down its sides “like the stickiest veal jus”. The rest of our meal was equally fantastic: the best roast potatoes I’ve ever had in a pub; “out of this world” cauliflower cheese. There aren’t many places I’d rather be after a “long walk in the English cold”. Pie with all its trimmings: £19.50; meat roasts £22/£23.

68 Warwick Rd, Carlisle; thegreek.co.uk

Alexandros has been “feeding the good and greedy of Carlisle for more than two decades”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . And they clearly love it: when I visited on a Wednesday lunchtime, the restaurant was “doing trade of which others can only dream”. It is very much “a family affair”: one of the owner’s sons works front-of-house; another is in the basement baking the excellent breads; the kitchen is headed up by another family member. Much of the menu feels familiar: “there’s tarama, tzatziki, souvlaki and the rest”. But there’s a “pleasing restlessness” to some of the dishes here, such as cheese-stuffed squid in a seafood bisque, which feels as if it could have come from “off the Marseille docks”, or an “especially squid-happy corner of Italy’s boot”. This is “reassuring cooking”, which attends to the essentials while “pushing at the edges of what we assume Greek food” to be. Starters £5.75-£9.95, mains £14.50-£28.50, desserts £7.50.

14-15 Quay St, Cardiff; grupo44.co.uk

Located “a stone’s throw from Cardiff Arms Park”, this restaurant has one overriding purpose, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph : to “satisfy your inner cave-person”. Set up by two brothers who travelled extensively in Spain, it specialises in “large cuts of meat and fish”, roasted “over the coals of the parrilla grill”. We begin with various “magnificent bites” – Cantabrian anchovies with Spanish salami; a pair of prawn croqueta – before the first of our main courses arrives: a whole grilled squid “lightly touched by the fire”. It’s a “thing of serene, pinkish beauty” – and the tastiest squid I can remember eating. Next up is a shoulder of suckling pig: “we attack the pork, delving through its crisp layer of fat and deeper into the soft, young piggy flesh”. The wines accompanying this feast are “equally fabulous” – especially the restaurant’s own UVA 44 syrah – and service is charming and enthusiastic. Asador 44 is a “tremendous” way to experience the “glory of rustic Spanish cuisine”. £142.50 for a family sharing lunch, excluding drinks and service.

26-29 Dean Street, Soho, London W1; quovadissoho.co.uk

This venerable Soho establishment has for the past 15 years operated as a private members’ club, with a “bijou members’ dining room” on the first floor and an “extremely cramped public restaurant downstairs”, said Tim Hayward in the FT . Last year, it finally got round to upgrading and expanding its ground-floor restaurant – creating a fitting space in which to appreciate the talents of head chef Jeremy Lee. Lee’s food, while “too generous and enjoyable” to be called “haute”, is nonetheless “considered and lovingly built”. “Spot on” Cullen skink is followed by “outstanding” skate wing with brown butter. Then comes the pie of the day – chicken velouté with a suet crust – and it proves “beyond my most fevered anticipation”, the suet crust an “almost inconceivable combination of crispness and flexibility”. The “same balance of craft and comfort” is evident in desserts such as lemon tart and orange crème caramel, which are “sweet but also tart enough to cleanse”. Starters £9.50-£12.50; mains £21.50-£28.50; desserts: £9.50-£10.

94 Kensington High Street, London W8; bigmammagroup.com

Jacuzzi, in west London, is “no mere restaurant”, says Tom Parker Bowles in the  Daily Mail . Rather, it’s a “place where Pasolini meets Pizza Express” – where you feel as though you’re “playing a bit part in some crazed Dolce & Gabbana fever dream”. That isn’t surprising, because it’s the latest venture from the Big Mamma group, owners of such “gloriously OTT” restaurants as Gloria and Ave Mario. Here, the “floors are extravagantly tiled”, jazz purrs from hidden speakers, and the lighting is “not so much soft as downright crepuscular”. But cut through the camp, and there’s real quality to be found in the cooking. Culatello di Zibello (cured pork) is “excellent”, the slices “paper-thin” and “sweetly piggy”. A “vast” T-bone Fiorentina steak could easily feed four, and “I’d happily come back” for the pizza alone. “Prudes and purists” may disapprove of Jacuzzi – but the place is a real “pick-me-up”. About £40 a head.

11-12 Bartlett Street, Bath; beckfordcanteen.com

The menu at this new restaurant in Bath is not one that needs to be “cogitated over” for hours, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . On the contrary, it “demands to be gobbled up”. The latest addition to the Beckford Group – which owns several popular pubs and restaurants in the west of England – it is housed in a former Georgian greenhouse and specialises in modern British classics. My friend and I “snuck in at 6.30pm” – the place was booked out – and started our meal with rye old-fashioneds accompanied by “hunks of oozy rarebit titivated with pickled onion”. “Good sardines” arrived on toast; there was “luxurious and balm-like” chestnut soup; and another starter of leek and smoked eel was topped with a “perfectly wobbly” egg yolk. Even better was my main course of monkfish, served with silky curried butter and “concertina-style confit potatoes”: it’s “shaping up to be one of my dishes of 2023”. There is nothing fussy about Beckford Canteen – it’s just a “charming place where the food is dead good”. From about £55 per head, plus drinks and service.

The Chancellors, 25 Crisp Road, London W6; @crisppizzaw6

If you’re apprised of culinary hype, you will probably know that The Chancellors – an “outwardly unremarkable” pub in London’s Hammersmith – is home to Crisp Pizza W6, said Jimi Famurewa in the Evening Standard . This “permanent kitchen residency” has become a choice destination for “aficionados of all stripes”, who’ve dubbed the New York-style pizzas “perhaps the best in the capital”. I’m not sure that accolade can really be justified – “pizza’s pleasures are intensely personal” – but there’s no doubting that Carl McCluskey’s thin-crust pizzas are works of “urgent, crunching genius”. The pepperoni – “a disc of oven-scorched dough, bubbling cheese and cupped coins of pepperoni” – has a “profoundly flavoursome chew”. With the Vecna – named after the villain in Netflix’s Stranger Things – the same pepperoni base is given a “candied sweetness courtesy of dribbled hot honey”. You’ll probably have to queue to eat these pies – The Chancellors doesn’t take bookings – but there’s a “honed simplicity” to what McCluskey does that makes his slices worth waiting for. Meal for two plus drinks about £50.

27 Uxbridge Street, London W8; akub-restaurant.com

The food of Palestine is “too often hazily described as merely Middle Eastern”, said Jimi Famurewa in the Evening Standard . So it’s a good thing that it has a new London “champion”, in the form of this “remarkable little restaurant” in Kensington – the first British venture by the Bethlehem-based chef Fadi Kattan. My friend and I sit not in the elegant main dining room, but in the “indoor courtyard” directly behind it – a space decorated with “bushels of dried foliage, hung from keys that represent lost Palestinian homes”. Our meal begins with “confrontationally fragrant” za’atar bread, which is “ably abetted” by a range of dips: fava bean foul, red lentil moutabal, a “snapping, fermented chilli shatta”. This is followed by “beguiling” arak-cured sea bass, a “reinvention” of the lamb stew mansaf – here it comes as a “fried dough parcel” – and finally a “bulbous, featherlight” rum baba, flavoured with fenugreek, cardamom and pistachio. A place of “enlivening, domestic warmth”, Akub is a “stylishly executed and enormously meaningful act of cultural preservation”. Meal for two plus drinks, about £120.

183-185 Clare Road, Cardiff; matsudai.co.uk

Matsudai Ramen is the “only dedicated ramen shop in Wales”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . It is the brainchild of James Chant, a former tour manager who became obsessed with the noodle dish after growing disillusioned with the music industry. You might wrinkle your nose at the idea of a “40-something white bloke from Cardiff” making such a “profoundly Japanese dish”, but Chant’s version is undeniably tasty. His “signature” tonkotsu broth – made by boiling pork bones for a dozen hours or more – has “an almost Dulux gloss to it”, and is profoundly flavoursome. Even more revelatory is his vegan one: it is the “richest of savoury broths”, given a creamy edge by the addition of oat milk. Toppings are impeccable too: generous slices of crisped pork belly; eggs with “perfectly jellied yolks”; “paving slabs” of deep-fried tofu. But there are other wonderful things on the menu: the triple-fried marinated chicken thighs “are as good as any I’ve tried anywhere”. Small plates £4-£8, ramen £12.50-£15, dessert £7.

63 Bartholomew Close, London EC1; restaurant-stbarts.co.uk

The people behind this new restaurant in Smithfield also own Nest in Hackney, and the “brilliant Fenn in Fulham”, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . Their “third child” is their most audacious venture yet: “launching in a cash-strapped era”, Restaurant St. Barts offers evening diners a compulsory 15-course tasting menu that costs £120 a head (rising to £140 from April). Since the prospect of 15 courses makes me want to “shudder then dive for cover”, I opted to go there for lunch instead, which costs a mere £60 for five courses. It proved “revelatory”. There was a “clever and delicate” dish of raw scallops, swimming in a soup of peppers; a “heady, comforting mix of onion and cheese” under a “soft mountain of shaved truffle”; and a “light mouthful of crab” on a fluffy, ginger-inflected sauce. But best of all was the “heroic” and “wholesome” duck, served with cabbage, mash and red berries. “This is a set menu to turn the tasting-menu sceptic” – and a “deft and clever example of modern British cooking”. Lunch for two: £170 with truffle shavings and cheese; excluding drinks and service.

Slad Road, Stroud, Gloucestershire; thewoolpackslad.com

This 300-year-old watering hole in the Cotswolds village of Slad used to be the local of "Cider with Rosie" author Laurie Lee, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . It “still has about it a literary feel” – as evidenced by the fact that it has its own minuscule bookshop – but these days the “main event” is the cooking of Adam Glover, formerly of the celebrated Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow. The daily changing menu is full of sophisticated but “hearty” dishes. Starters include “plump, earthy chicken livers” with persillade on toasted sourdough, and “fearsome slabs of duck pâté served with brandied prunes”. For mains, there’s a “large, luscious pork chop” with creamy polenta, and onglet with fries and pickled walnuts. “This is confident, swaggering cooking that almost doesn’t care whether you like it.” But I certainly did. From about £45 a head, plus drinks and service.

66 Cowcross Street, London EC1; bouchonracine.com

The chef Henry Harris used to run a “beautiful bistro in Knightsbridge called Racine”, which closed in 2015, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . After a break from full-time cheffing, he is back with this fabulous new venture, housed in a “panelled room of tantalising hospitality” above the Three Compasses Pub in Farringdon. Bouchons are restaurants typically found in Lyon, which serve “good honest food to good honest workers”; and the menu here – chalked on a “vast blackboard” – is a “roll-call of Lyonnaise beauties”. I start with Bayonne ham and celeriac remoulade, and move on to “pure and wholesome” rabbit in mustard sauce. My son, meanwhile, has immaculately spiced steak tartare, which comes in a “generous dollop”. A side dish of spinach – look away now – is “creamed and spun with foie gras”. To finish, I have a “nifty” pot au chocolat. With a great value wine list and good honest service, Bouchon Racine is simply wonderful: “if you don’t like it, you don’t like food”. Dinner for two: £129.50, excluding drinks and service.

13 High Street, West Bromwich; sportsmanbarandrestaurant.co.uk

Britain’s “Desi pubs” date back to the 1950s, when they opened in places such as Leicester and the West Midlands to cater to men from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who’d come to the UK after partition, often without their families, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . Today, they “sit right at the heart” of those same communities, and bring a “beautifully precise extra dimension to British pub culture”. I decide to try the Sportsman Club, in West Bromwich, after reading a glowing review on the “ever insightful Meat and One Veg blog”. Although the place is far from pretty – it’s a “modern pub built for maximum capacity” – this is more than made up for by the food. My friend and I start with the “huge mixed grill for three”, of which the star is the “tender and juicy” chicken tikka. We follow that with bakra lamb curry on the bone (a “wonder of thick, spiced ghee-rich gravy and bone marrow suckage”), chilli fish from the menu’s Indo-Chinese section, and a “soothing, ferrous” saag aloo. Unable to manage it all, we “make our loved ones love us even more by carting home the leftovers”. Starters £3-£10.50, mains £4.50-£10.50, desserts £2.

43 Topsfield Parade, London N8; kalimera.london

This Greek restaurant began life in 2015 as a gourmet food truck in Hoxton, said Julie Bindel in The Spectator . It proved so popular that it now has three permanent sites: two in France and this one in London, minutes from my home in the “media-luvvie enclave of Crouch End”. I’m very pleased to have discovered it, because everything here is “pretty much spot-on”. The menu is modern but with plenty of classics, and everything is “cooked from scratch, the old-fashioned way”. An “indulgent slab” of creamy feta cheese is pan-fried in crispy filo, and comes drizzled with chilli honey and a dollop of baba ganoush. There’s a “perfectly formed” Greek salad, and various “beautifully presented” mains, including souvlaki, kleftiko and moussaka. But the real “revelation”is the dessert menu – especially the orange cake, made according to the chef’s mother’s recipe. “One mouthful and I was suddenly on the deck of a sleepy taverna, overlooking the Aegean sea.” Starters £4.50-£12.50; mains £17-£22; desserts £8-£10.

44 Main Street, Sedbergh, Cumbria; theblackbullsedbergh.co.uk

The Black Bull Inn in Sedbergh performs a “juggling act”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . With its “curving booths in red leather”, local beers, and bar menu offering hearty sandwiches, it feels, in many ways, like a traditional country pub. But in the restaurant proper, the offering is rather different. Nina Matsunaga, the head chef, was raised by Japanese parents in the German town of Düsseldorf, and she brings those influences to bear on her “intricate” and detailed cooking. “Perfectly cooked” mackerel is layered with nori seaweed, wild garlic buds and caviar, resulting in a “fish dish unashamed of its funky pelagic depths”. Tangles of shredded beef are “wrapped in a delicate, wafting shiso leaf” and deep fried in “lacy tempura batters”. Desserts, if anything, raise things higher: so light is a disc of duck-egg custard that it “seems to be holding its shape merely through strength of character”. And yet such “lofty culinary ambition” doesn’t come with a “side order of dreary, puckered formality”. This is still “very much a pub”. Starters £9.95-£11; mains £18.50-£28; desserts £7.50-£8.50.

82 Duke Street, London W1; cubitthouse.co.uk

There are many places you can go in London “for a light supper, full of subtlety and grace”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . The Barley Mow isn’t one of them. Situated in Mayfair, it has recently been renovated by Cubitt House, a group that specialises in giving glossy makeovers to pubs in smart London neighbourhoods. The food is overseen by Ben Tish, and it proves as “butch and beguiling as the fit-out”. Starters include a “shirt-destroying” hot meat bun – a brioche roll stacked with slow-cooked beef and pickles – and a plate of fresh cockles in a “hot liquid swamp” of garlicky butter. Mains are equally tempting: I order slow-cooked pork belly, which comes with “big puffs of crackling”, a herb-stuffed round of the loin, and a “bronzed” gratin dauphinoise. None of this is exactly cheap – we are in Mayfair, after all – but “the problem with really expensive things” is that sometimes they are “really nice”. Bar snacks and starters £8-£18, mains £19-£36, desserts £10-£12.

14 Station Street, Lewes, East Sussex; fork-lewes.co.uk

The “quirky, charming” town of Lewes has tended to have a fairly limited dining scene, says Grace Dent in The Guardian . But with the arrival of this neighbourhood restaurant, things are looking up. Fork may be “small and intimate” – those sitting near you will “hear every word of your chat” – but it’s “bursting with ambition”, and the food it serves is “fancy and imaginative”. A quenelle of chicken liver pâté served on “moist, home-baked brioche” is the sort of dish that “sets out a restaurant’s stall”: every element feels “pondered over, including the placement of the micro cress and pea shoots”. Better still is cauliflower velouté, which “sounds as if it might be a humble soup, but is in fact sating and complex” – a rich concoction featuring blue cheese and hazelnuts and a topping of “slightly sweet beignets”. Times are hard for restaurants – and especially for small, independent ones. “So if you can support places such as Fork, please show willing.” Two courses £30, three £38, plus drinks and service.

2 East Street, Ashburton, Devon; emiliaashburton.co.uk

This recently opened restaurant on the edge of Dartmoor is a place of “almost tear-jerking” charm, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph . Housed in a former bank in the pretty town of Ashburton, it consists of a “modest-sized room with a kitchen at one end” and a “scattering of old wooden tables”. The Italian-inspired menu is a “model of tight, appetising precision” – and the food could hardly be more delicious. My buddy and I begin with a stew of peppers and borlotti beans, which is a “paean to rich and hearty rural bliss”. Subsequent dishes are also “too good not to share” – “impeccable” tagliatelle with veal ragù, and a “similarly glorious” dish of roasted ray. Finally, there’s creamed rice with damson and pistachio – a “dish that single-handedly rescues the reputation of rice pudding”. Anyone who has ever daydreamed of opening a “little place in a small rural town” could learn a thing of two from Emilia: it “has it all”. Lunch for two: £78 excluding drinks and service.

5a Maryland Road, London W9; tsiakkos.co.uk

This long-established Greek-Cypriot restaurant in west London is a “reminder that amid the fetishising of the new by people like me, great places carry on doing great things year after year, untroubled by any of that”, said Jay Rayner in The Observer . It’s not easy to find, as there’s “no signage on the turquoise frontage”. Instead, be guided by the “heavy waft of charcoal smoke” that drifts enticingly down the street. Once you’re in, walk past the “open kitchen with its charcoal grill, tended by a couple of bearded men, to the half wood-panelled dining room at the back”. The short menu is built around a “classic repertoire”: we choose hummus and taramasalata, thick slabs of grilled halloumi, a dish of meltingly tender “slow-burnt pork”, whose “sweetly glazed skin is a sticky, chewy wonder”. It’s food that makes you feel “properly looked after”. Tsiakkos & Charcoal may not be a place where “wheels are reinvented”– but it’s “damn lovely”. Starters and sides £4.50-£9.50; mains £13.50-£18.

Hillgate Street, London W8; kuro-london.com

This Italo-Japanese restaurant has a rather austere vibe, said Jimi Famurewa in the London Evening Standard . Occupying a “big-windowed corner berth” on a Notting Hill backstreet, its interior is dominated by a “long, low stone bar”. But if the space feels a bit “cold and featureless”, the same can’t be said of Andrianos Poulis’s cooking, which brims with “personality and life”. A Japanese potato salad has a “hypnotic creaminess”, and comes adorned with flecks of smoked mackerel and a “sunny cascade of grated cured egg yolk”. A Milanese-style cotolette of crumbed red bream is paired with the “deep, mustardy sweetness of a barbecued carrot sauce”. Kuro Eatery is the sister venture of the “minimalist” Kuro Coffee across the road, and plans are afoot to open a bakery too. At a time when many restaurants are “mortally imperilled”, such empire-building may seem like “ill-timed overreach”. But my hunch is that this will be a neighbourhood empire that “triumphs rather than topples”. Meal for two plus drinks about £120.

Skelton, near Penrith, Cumbria; dogandgunskelton.co.uk

This Michelin-starred pub seven miles northwest of Penrith is refreshingly different from the “big beasts” of the Lake District’s dining scene, said Grace Dent in The Guardian . Whereas the likes of L’Enclume, Allium and The Forest Side specialise in “ornate, multi-course fine dining” for gastro-tourists, this place seems to want to pretend that it’s “not a Michelin-starred establishment at all”. Dinner here is “hearty and heartwarming”, and you won’t spend half your meal learning about the “provenance” of the ingredients. But the cooking is still extremely accomplished. A “very good” twice-baked cheese soufflé is served piping hot in an iron skillet, and sits “in a puddle of unctuous, cheddary goo” with a black truffle “mohawk” shaved over its head. A vermouth butter sauce that comes with a dish of halibut pulls off the trick of being “sweet, boozy and citrussy all at the same time”. It took me ages to get to the Dog & Gun – but I’m already “making plans to come back”. From £55 a head for three courses, plus drinks and service.

12 Barclay Terrace, Edinburgh; leftfieldedinburgh.co.uk

Despite its name, there is nothing unconventional about this Edinburgh bistro, says Jay Rayner in The Observer . It’s a place that quietly goes about the business of giving its customers a “nice bit of dinner”. Notwithstanding the “occasional knowing flourish” – a mayo rendered “deep pink” courtesy of gochujang; a hummus “boosted by fistfuls of chopped basil” – the cooking here is of a type that a “century’s worth of French chefs would nod at approvingly”. Hake is “sensitively fried”, and sits “in a lake of a beurre blanc dotted with black beads of roe”. A piece of slow-braised brisket is served with pommes Anna, kale, a “hefty grating” of Shepherd’s Store cheese, and a “deep lustrous truffled gravy”. In other ways, too, LeftField is extremely inviting: the “cosy” dining room is a space you want to linger in, and the waiters exude an air of relaxed enjoyment. There may be more ambitious restaurants in Edinburgh – but this was “just the thing” for a dark winter’s night. Starters £8-£12, mains £14-£25, desserts £7.50-£8.50.

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The Top 11 Restaurant Review Sites in 2024

Even without a dedicated website, customers share their experiences and influence others’ dining decisions.

The internet has transformed word-of-mouth, allowing diners to gauge social proof for their restaurant choices.

Survey data reveals that 94% of US diners rely on online reviews when exploring new dining options. Positive experiences, captivating photos, and comprehensive menu information enhance a restaurant’s appeal.

Beyond reviews, an online presence is vital for discoverability, ensuring that potential customers are aware of your restaurant’s existence. Optimizing restaurant listing sites becomes essential in fueling foot traffic and garnering online reviews while boosting Google search visibility.

Table of Contents

Why do restaurants need to be on restaurant review sites & apps?

Apps and restaurant review sites serve a multitude of important roles for establishments in the food service industry. Here are some significant advantages that restaurants can gain from using these platforms:

• Enhanced Visibility: When listed on prominent restaurant review websites and apps, restaurants gain visibility among potential patrons.
• Social Validation and Trustworthiness: High ratings and positive feedback on review sites and apps elevate a restaurant’s reliability.
• Customer Insight and Feedback: Through the reviews and comments left on these platforms, restaurants can understand customer preferences, identify areas of improvement, and make informed business decisions by analyzing the evaluations.
• Online Reputation Management: As a restaurant proprietor, your aim should be to accumulate stellar reviews to uphold your online reputation. By engaging with customer reviews, restaurants can address criticisms, resolve issues, and manifest their commitment to customer satisfaction.
• Competitive Edge: Restaurants can monitor apps and review sites to stay abreast with their competitors, enabling them to set themselves apart, enhance their offerings, or leverage specific strengths.
• Marketing and Publicity: Restaurants can leverage these platforms as promotional tools, reaching a wider audience with their menu offerings.

What is the top food review site?

Customers are presented with a myriad of platforms to evaluate restaurants, so it’s essential for your dining establishment to be visible across an assortment of restaurant review sites and applications. Determining the optimal platform largely relies on your specific requirements.

Here are our top 11 recommendations for restaurant review platforms:

• Google My Business
• TripAdvisor
• The Infatuation

1. Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) stands as the unrivaled champion among review sites for restaurants, offering a wealth of benefits that make it the go-to choice for any eatery. Firstly, its sheer dominance in global internet traffic and engagement, with approximately 8.5 billion daily searches, ensures that your restaurant will receive ample exposure to potential customers.

By enlisting your establishment on GMB, you can take advantage of its top-tier search engine ranking, leading to increased visibility in relevant search results when users look for specific cuisines or dining options in your area.

Moreover, GMB’s user-friendly interface allows restaurant owners to create and manage their listings effortlessly, keeping information up-to-date and engaging customers effectively.

For restaurant owners seeking to cater to their customers’ needs, Google My Business is an indispensable tool. Utilizing GMB enables you to provide essential information about your restaurant, including contact details, location, opening hours, and even a link to your website . This streamlines the decision-making process for potential diners, making it convenient for them to find relevant details and make reservations.

Additionally, Google My Business allows you to showcase your restaurant’s ambiance through photos, share updates, and respond to customer reviews, fostering a direct and engaging relationship with your clientele. By actively participating in GMB, you can not only bolster your online reputation but also attract more customers, as positive reviews and active interactions with diners contribute to improved search rankings and increased trust in your restaurant’s offerings.

With its unmatched reach, user-friendly features, and potential to cultivate stronger customer relationships, Google My Business unquestionably stands as the best review site for restaurants.

2. Facebook

For restaurants looking to thrive in the digital age, Facebook emerges as the ultimate review site, offering unparalleled advantages that make it a must-have platform for engaging with customers. With billions of active users worldwide, Facebook provides an extensive and diverse audience, ensuring your restaurant reaches potential diners from all walks of life.

By establishing a strong presence on Facebook, you can leverage its vast user base to showcase your restaurant’s unique offerings, special promotions, and captivating visuals, creating a powerful first impression that entices customers to dine with you.

One of Facebook’s standout features is its interactive nature, allowing direct and real-time communication with your audience. Through posts, comments, and direct messages, you can forge a genuine connection with customers, addressing their queries, acknowledging their feedback, and expressing appreciation for their patronage.

This level of personalization fosters a sense of loyalty and community around your restaurant, turning casual customers into brand advocates who passionately share their positive experiences with others. Moreover, the review system on Facebook offers a valuable channel for customers to share their thoughts, helping potential diners make informed choices and further boosting your restaurant’s credibility and reputation.

By embracing Facebook as a review site, you can tap into its vast user base, cultivate meaningful relationships with customers, and harness the power of authentic word-of-mouth marketing to propel your restaurant to new heights.

For restaurants seeking to establish a strong online presence and build a reputation among food enthusiasts, Yelp stands out as the premier review site that should not be overlooked. With millions of users actively searching for dining options, Yelp offers a dedicated platform for customers to share their dining experiences, making it a powerful tool for attracting new patrons.

By claiming and optimizing your restaurant’s Yelp page, you can ensure that your business information, contact details, and menu are accurate, providing potential diners with essential details to make informed choices.

Yelp’s review system is its core strength, providing an avenue for customers to express their thoughts and opinions openly. Positive reviews can act as a powerful endorsement for your restaurant, drawing in more customers who trust the experiences of their peers. Meanwhile, responding to reviews, both positive and negative, shows your commitment to customer satisfaction and highlights your responsiveness as a business owner.

Engaging with Yelp reviews demonstrates your dedication to providing an exceptional dining experience, which in turn can lead to increased foot traffic and word-of-mouth referrals.

By embracing Yelp as a review site, restaurants can tap into a vast user base, gain valuable feedback from customers, and position themselves as go-to dining destinations for food enthusiasts looking to explore the best culinary offerings in their area.

4. Tripadvisor

For restaurants aiming to elevate their global appeal and cater to a diverse audience of travelers and food enthusiasts, TripAdvisor emerges as the ultimate review site that demands attention. With millions of users worldwide actively searching for dining recommendations, TripAdvisor provides a powerful platform for showcasing your restaurant to an international audience.

By claiming and optimizing your restaurant’s TripAdvisor listing, you can ensure accurate information, captivating visuals, and engaging descriptions that leave a lasting impression on potential customers.

TripAdvisor’s review ecosystem serves as a crucial pillar of its success, enabling travelers and locals alike to share their experiences and opinions openly. Positive reviews on TripAdvisor can significantly impact your restaurant’s reputation, positioning it as a top choice among diners seeking authentic and delightful culinary experiences.

Responding to reviews, be it expressions of gratitude or handling constructive criticism, demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction and exemplifies your dedication to continuous improvement.

With TripAdvisor’s extensive reach and powerful influence, restaurants can establish a global presence, attract tourists and locals alike, and cultivate a strong online reputation that resonates with travellers from all corners of the world.

For restaurants aiming to thrive in the dynamic world of modern dining, Zomato emerges as an indispensable review site that should not be overlooked. As one of the leading platforms for food enthusiasts, Zomato boasts a vast user base and a strong presence in multiple countries, making it an ideal avenue for attracting a diverse array of customers.

By claiming and optimizing your restaurant’s Zomato listing, you can present your establishment in the best light, with accurate information, enticing visuals, and compelling descriptions that entice potential diners.

Zomato’s review and rating system plays a pivotal role in guiding food enthusiasts toward exceptional dining experiences. Positive reviews on Zomato can serve as powerful endorsements, enhancing your restaurant’s credibility and influencing potential customers’ choices.

Engaging with reviews, whether it’s expressing gratitude for positive feedback or addressing constructive criticism, reflects your commitment to customer satisfaction and highlights your dedication to providing an outstanding dining experience.

Leveraging Zomato’s extensive user base, restaurants can tap into a thriving community of food enthusiasts, garner valuable feedback, and establish a strong online presence that resonates with discerning diners seeking memorable culinary journeys.

6. OpenTable

For restaurants striving to optimize their reservation system and attract discerning diners, OpenTable stands out as the premier reservation and review platform that should be a top priority. With its user-friendly interface and widespread adoption, OpenTable makes it effortless for customers to book tables at your restaurant, streamlining the reservation process and enhancing the overall dining experience.

By partnering with OpenTable, restaurants can benefit from its extensive network of diners, ensuring a steady flow of reservations and increasing the visibility of their establishment.

OpenTable’s integrated review system provides a valuable avenue for customers to share their dining experiences, allowing potential diners to make informed decisions based on authentic and insightful feedback.

Positive reviews on OpenTable serve as powerful endorsements, driving more customers to your restaurant and elevating your reputation as a favored dining destination.

Engaging with reviews demonstrates your commitment to exceptional customer service, fostering a positive perception among diners and building a loyal customer base.

Through its seamless reservation and review functionalities, OpenTable empowers restaurants to optimize their operations, attract a wider audience, and establish a strong online presence that resonates with diners seeking memorable dining experiences.

Zagat, renowned for its trusted restaurant reviews, holds a distinguished position as an authoritative guide for food enthusiasts seeking extraordinary culinary experiences. With decades of experience and a team of dedicated experts, Zagat curates comprehensive restaurant evaluations, providing diners with reliable insights into the finest dining establishments.

By relying on Zagat’s esteemed reviews, food enthusiasts can confidently explore new dining options, ensuring unforgettable gastronomic journeys. As a prestigious platform that values the essence of dining experiences, Zagat’s reviews go beyond simple star ratings, delving into detailed accounts of ambiance, service, and the overall dining atmosphere.

This level of in-depth analysis empowers diners to make well-informed choices, aligning their preferences with the diverse offerings of Zagat-approved restaurants. With its commitment to accuracy and expertise, Zagat remains an invaluable resource for both locals and travelers, guiding them to discover hidden culinary gems and iconic dining destinations that cater to their discerning tastes.

8. The Infatuation

The Infatuation, a leading platform for restaurant recommendations, has established itself as a go-to guide for diners seeking exceptional culinary experiences. Known for its fresh, entertaining, and candid approach to reviews, The Infatuation offers a unique perspective that resonates with food enthusiasts across various cities.

Through its engaging content and expertly curated lists, The Infatuation helps diners discover hidden gems and trendy hotspots, providing valuable insights to navigate the dynamic world of dining. Unlike traditional review sites, The Infatuation focuses on creating a sense of community and camaraderie among food lovers. T

heir team of passionate reviewers delivers authentic, relatable content, helping diners connect with restaurants on a more personal level. By emphasizing the joy of dining and the thrill of discovering new eateries, The Infatuation fosters a sense of excitement and adventure, inspiring diners to explore culinary offerings beyond their usual haunts.

With its innovative approach and dedication to fostering a vibrant dining culture, The Infatuation continues to be a trusted ally for food enthusiasts looking to indulge in unforgettable gastronomic experiences.

9. Foursquare

Foursquare, a pioneering location-based platform, has evolved into a versatile tool for restaurant discovery and exploration. With its extensive database of businesses and user-generated content, Foursquare serves as a valuable resource for both locals and travelers looking to find the best dining options in their vicinity.

Through its intuitive app and website, Foursquare provides personalised recommendations based on individual preferences, ensuring a tailored and enjoyable dining experience for each user. One of Foursquare’s standout features is its check-in system, allowing users to share their visits and experiences at restaurants.

These check-ins, along with user reviews and tips, contribute to a dynamic community-driven platform that enables food enthusiasts to share their favorite spots and insights with others.

Additionally, Foursquare’s innovative exploration features, such as “Nearby Places” and “Recommended for You,” encourage users to venture beyond their comfort zones, uncovering new restaurants and cuisines to savor.

With its user-friendly interface, rich data, and social networking elements, Foursquare has become an indispensable companion for diners seeking to discover, share, and celebrate the diverse and vibrant world of food.

Gayot, a respected and long-standing restaurant review site, has solidified its position as a trusted guide for discerning diners seeking refined culinary experiences. With a team of expert reviewers, Gayot provides in-depth and sophisticated assessments of restaurants, ensuring accurate and insightful evaluations for food enthusiasts.

Renowned for its commitment to high standards and fine dining, Gayot offers a curated selection of top-rated restaurants, making it an indispensable resource for those looking to indulge in exquisite gastronomy.

Unlike typical review sites, Gayot delves into various aspects of the dining experience, such as service, ambiance, and wine selections, providing a comprehensive overview that helps diners make well-informed choices.

The platform’s dedication to excellence and its emphasis on gourmet dining resonate with a discerning audience, drawing sophisticated food enthusiasts to explore the recommended establishments.

With its esteemed reputation, Gayot continues to serve as a prestigious guide, guiding diners to extraordinary culinary destinations that offer memorable and refined experiences.

11. Uber Eats

Uber Eats, a leading food delivery platform, has revolutionized the way people access and enjoy their favorite restaurant meals. Leveraging the vast Uber network, Uber Eats connects users with an extensive selection of local eateries, offering a convenient and seamless ordering experience right from their smartphones.

With its user-friendly app and website, Uber Eats allows customers to explore a diverse range of cuisines, from popular chains to hidden gems, all delivered straight to their doorstep.

Uber Eats has become a lifeline for restaurants, especially during challenging times, providing a valuable avenue to reach a broader customer base and generate additional revenue. By partnering with Uber Eats , restaurants can tap into a massive pool of hungry customers, attracting new patrons who may have never visited their establishment otherwise.

For busy diners, Uber Eats offers an efficient and time-saving solution, making it effortless to satisfy cravings and enjoy restaurant-quality meals from the comfort of their homes or offices.

With its widespread availability and commitment to swift, reliable delivery, Uber Eats has become an integral part of the modern dining landscape, enriching the culinary experience for both customers and restaurants alike.

How restaurants can improve restaurant review site listings

Eager to amplify your restaurant’s presence on these acclaimed review platforms and, naturally, bask in a surge of positive reviews? Here, we present a treasure trove of invaluable tips and tricks to help you accomplish just that:

1. Promote the use of photos and videos in reviews

In this digital age, visuals have a high impact. Encourage your customers to share photos and videos of their experiences at your restaurant when they leave reviews. Seeing the food and ambiance can often sway potential customers to try your restaurant. The user-generated content can also be utilized on your social media platforms with due credit to the original reviewers, building a sense of community around your brand.

2. Train your staff to encourage reviews

Your staff plays a crucial role in creating a memorable dining experience for your customers. Train them to subtly ask for reviews at the end of each meal. This could be as simple as saying, “If you enjoyed your meal, we would appreciate it if you could leave us a review on our website or on any of the popular review sites.” The personal touch can make a difference in influencing your customers to write a review.

3. Offer incentives for reviews

While it’s essential to ensure reviews are genuine, offering incentives such as discounts on the next purchase or a small gift can encourage customers to take the time to leave a review. Make sure to clarify that the incentive is for leaving a review, not necessarily for leaving a positive one, as you want to maintain the integrity of the reviews and respect your customers’ honest feedback.

4. Pay attention to the at-home delivery experience 

As underscored several times in this guide, addressing comments can significantly benefit your business. It’s imperative to adhere to effective communication strategies when replying to customers.

Your responses should illustrate your concern, display gratitude for the feedback given, and convey your commitment to continuously enhance the quality of your offerings.

This approach also extends to managing customer grievances. After publicly addressing an issue, make an effort to personally connect with the customer privately to determine possible resolutions.

Such initiatives do not go unnoticed. When customers perceive your sincere dedication to rectify matters, they are more likely to reconsider their feedback and may update their review reflecting the improved experience with your restaurant.

5. Use feedback forms

Providing feedback forms at the end of the meal gives your customers an immediate opportunity to share their thoughts about their dining experience. You can then request permission to share this feedback as a review on your website or social media platforms.

6. Email follow-ups

After customers have made a reservation or placed an order through your website, you can follow up with an email asking them to review their experience. This not only allows you to gather more reviews but also helps you stay in touch with your customers, which could lead to repeat business.

Remember, the key to gaining more reviews is to create an excellent customer experience consistently. When customers have a positive interaction with your restaurant, they are more likely to share that experience with others through reviews.

7. Pay attention to the at-home delivery experience

The prevalence of food delivery apps continues to rise year after year, with Statista forecasting that restaurant-to-consumer delivery revenue will hit an impressive $3.8 billion this year.

This surge implies that more and more restaurants are broadening their scope to cater to customers at home. Despite it being less immersive than the in-restaurant dining experience, it’s crucial to ensure that customers receive the same level of quality they would enjoy at your establishment. The emphasis here is purely on the food, rather than the entire dining experience. Hence, never underestimate your delivery customers! They can significantly influence your reviews.

This necessitates a heightened focus on aspects like food quality and packaging. With just a few taps, users can rate restaurants on delivery platforms like Uber Eats, and your aim should be for them to have only commendations to offer.

The importance of food review sites in 2024

In this digital era, customer perceptions are not solely based on the physical experience in your restaurant anymore. It also stems from the reviews they read online, the pictures of your dishes they encounter, your menu that they browse through on the internet, among other factors. Thus, your online reviews play a vital role in shaping the decisions these customers will make.

Food review platforms can considerably sway your restaurant’s prosperity. As long as you deliver a remarkable experience, positive reviews will naturally follow.

Establishing your restaurant’s digital persona necessitates not just claiming your listings across various platforms, but also maintaining consistency across them. You aim to weave a consistent narrative, a story compelling enough to attract potential patrons irrespective of their online touchpoint.

In conclusion, restaurant review sites are vital for the success and growth of your restaurant business in today’s digital age. They serve as a window to your business, providing potential diners with a glimpse of what to expect from your establishment.

These platforms not only improve your visibility but also provide crucial feedback that can be instrumental in refining your services and offerings. Positive reviews can significantly enhance your reputation, attract new customers, and ultimately drive more sales.

Moreover, they enable you to engage directly with your patrons, fostering a sense of loyalty and building stronger relationships. Therefore, harnessing the power of restaurant review sites can be a game-changer for your business, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased profitability.

Lee Jones is a seasoned Business Finance Specialist with over two decades of invaluable experience in the financial sector. With a keen eye for market trends and a passion for helping businesses thrive, Lee has become a trusted advisor to countless organizations seeking to navigate the complexities of finance.

• Lee Jones https://pdq-funding.co.uk/author/lee-jones/ Self employed small business loan
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Guardian restaurant review of London Jewish deli manages to bash Israel

Jay Rayner, in a restaurant review for the Observer (sister site of the Guardian), sampled the salt beef sandwich, matzah ball soup, chopped liver, bagels and pickles at a new Jewish deli in London called Freddie’s . (Freddie’s, London: ‘Over salt beef, I brood on the need to review this Jewish deli’ – restaurant review, March 31)

The review was mixed. The Jewish journalist loved the salt beef sandwich, but it “pained” him to criticise the chicken soup as “desperately under-seasoned”.  Something else that clearly ‘pained’ him actually isn’t on the menu. Nor does it have anything whatsoever to do with the review. Though, as you’ll see in the paragraphs below, he tries desperately to imagine one:

There is a good chocolate mousse made on site, to go along with the bought-in pastries. It is while I am spooning the mousse away that I begin brooding about the fact that this review almost didn’t happen. And now I should warn you that it’s going to take a dark turn. When I first came across Freddie’s I was excited. For all my lack of faith or observance these dishes, kept alive by a vestigial memory of the  shtetl , root me. Then I hesitated. Could I really write about a Jewish restaurant given the current political turmoil? Would I get abuse for doing so? Surely better to keep shtum.

At which point I knew I had no choice: I had to write about it. The horrendous campaign of the government and armed forces of Israel in Gaza cannot be allowed to make being Jewish a source of shame.

When Hamas mounted their 7 October attack on Israel, they committed both an atrocity and a provocation. With so many hostages taken, there were no good options for the Israeli government. Nevertheless, they managed to choose the very worst one. They have killed thousands, starved many more, destroyed homes and turned their country into a pariah. As it happens, they have also made life for Jews who live outside Israel and have no responsibility for the decisions its government takes, so very much harder. I deplore what Israel is doing. But that doesn’t mean I can “refute” my Jewishness. That is a surrender to antisemitism. And so I sit here with my terrific salt beef sandwich and my chocolate mousse, indulging that bit of my Jewish identity which makes sense to me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.

Life for the British Jewish community has indeed been much, much harder since Oct. 7.

The CST reported 4,103 instances of anti-Jewish hate in 2023, 2,699 (66%) of which occurred on or after 7 October. This figure alone, they note, “exceeds any previous annual antisemitic incident total recorded by CST, and marks an increase of 589% from the 392 instances of antisemitism reported to CST over the same time period in 2022″.

However, his suggestion that the decisions of Israel’s government has made life for Jews “so very much harder” is itself a classic (and codified ) antisemitic trope – blaming Jews in Israel for the racist actions of non-Jews in the UK.  Can you even imagine an American or British writer of Palestinian descent feeling the need to distance him or herself from Hamas’s antisemitic massacre while reviewing a restaurant specialising in Palestinian cuisine?

It’s amazing that this even needs to be stated, but the only ones responsible for increased antisemitism – in the UK or anywhere else – are those committing antisemitic acts.  Even if you buy into his argument that Jerusalem’s military decisions since the barbarism of Oct. 7 have been the “worst” ones possible, or subscribe to the specific lie that Israel has intentionally “starved” Gazans, who, other than those who are already predisposed to hating Jews, would take their anti-Israel fury out on diaspora Jews?

Only at the Guardian – or an ASHJew character on the pages of Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question – would a Jewish restaurant critic writing a review abut salt beef, bagels and shmears feel the need to condemn and distance himself from the Jewish state.

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Such ignorant blather sadly is typical of the antisemites running riot in The Grauniad, Observer, Indy and the IPC (aka BBC). In their views, gone are the reasons for Israel’s horrible task of ridding the world of Hamas – and now are the reasons for revealing their disgusting views on why Jews should be persecuted.

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Inaccuracy, omission and oddity in a BBC Radio Ulster item on Israel – part one

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