Restaurant of the Year 2022 - The Bridge Arms, Canterbury

Since the madness of the Covid Times, you may have noticed that the rate of posting on this blog has slowed down a bit. Where I used to try and do 6 or 7 posts a month, and with that obviously stopping completely while there was nothing open to review, I have since found that 2 or 3 entries a month is a more realistic target for the new, more cautious restaurant landscape.

If we ever manage to see the end of the cost of living and energy crises, and confidence returns to restaurateurs and consumers alike, perhaps I'll pick up the pace again but then again, maybe writing up a smaller number of better, more interesting places is altogether a more sensible approach for the medium term.

Anyway, for the reasons I've mentioned, the pool of candidates for my favourites of 2022 is a bit smaller this year, but glancing through the list I can hardly say the quality has dipped. In fact if anything, the standard of food being produced up and down the country seems to be higher than ever, and is all the more remarkable considering the incredibly difficult circumstances in which it is produced. So with a general "thank you" to anywhere that's fed me over the last twelve months, here's a few of the highlights.


Best in London runner up - Bouchon Racine, Farringdon

You're either fans of Henry Harris' food, or you haven't tried it yet, and since the sad closure of Racine all those years ago it feels like nowhere has managed to live up to the gallic-shaped hole it left. Sure, the Coach and Horses (Harris' next venture) was - is - a very fine gastropub, but was hardly exactly unique in the UK, and not quite the perfect vehicle for his talents. Bouchon Racine, in a lovely bright space above the Three Compasses in Farringdon, takes up where Racine left off, yet seems to be charging a whole lot less than was necessary on Brompton Road for the same unapologetically French, exciting and mature food. This is undoubtedly one of the best French restaurants in London and - whisper it - probably a whole lot better than most French restaurants in France, too...


Best in London winner - Manteca, Shoreditch

Manteca is the kind of place that, if you only had the menu to base your opinion on, you'd quite reasonably decide it's just another mid-range Italian-British restaurant to slot in next to Padella and Bancone and various other places doing this kind of thing rather well, and it would be worth a quick bite with friends and nothing more.

You'd be wrong. Manteca certainly has the template and heritage of a number of other modern Italian restaurants from Trullo to Artusi and many more besides, but manages to stand head and shoulders out from the crowd by virtue of being absolutely world-class at everything they do. Focaccia made fresh daily, their own house-cured salami, hand-made pastas and a wonderful way with game (mallard, pheasant and partridge have been spotted in recent weeks), this is, as I said at the time, the only Italian restaurant any Londoner will ever need.


Best outside the UK winner - Cascina della Taverna, Desenzano del Garda

I tried hard - very hard - to separate my giddy enthusiasm at being on holiday in one of the most food-obsessed parts of the Western hemisphere and being taken on a long drive out of town to a family-run restaurant where they cook everything on a giant solid-fuel range, from the sober reality of the dishes served up that night. Was I just high on local wine and happy to be part of this authentic, homely experience, or was the food genuinely that brilliant? In the end, I decided it was the latter. Choose the provenance and style of your steak (some very local, some from as far afield as Ireland or Poland), have them grill it over the wood fire, enjoy it with seasonal veg and perhaps a bit of horse carpaccio, which is generally the thing to do. It's very easy to enjoy yourself in this part of the world, but Cascina della Taverna offers that little extra bit of magic.


Best outside of London runner up - Catch at the Old Fish Market, Weymouth

Despite the obvious benefits of opening a fine-dining seafood restaurant within spitting distance of the fishing boats that supply it, it's strange how few places outside of the most touristy parts of Cornwall and Devon are brave enough to do so. Catch, based in an old warehouse in the pretty medieval harbour of Weymouth in Dorset, is proof that if your ingredients are world class, and there's enough talent in the kitchen to make the most of it, you'll create your own demand and put your town on the culinary map. An impressive little operation indeed.


Best outside of London and overall best of 2022 - The Bridge Arms, Canterbury

Of course, I was always going to enjoy the Bridge. From the same team that brought us the impeccable Fordwich Arms, itself a best restaurant winner back in 2019, they were hardly likely to drop the ball on this their latest project, wrapping up the visually arresting, intelligently constructed food they made a name with in a more family-friendly gastropubby package. But quite how brilliant the Bridge Arms turned out to be was a shock even if as I said, like me, you were more or less expecting to be wildly impressed.

In short, nothing that comes out of the Bridge Arms is less than perfect, whether its throwaway snacks like padron peppers or (a nod to the early Clove Club menus) nuggets of buttermilk fried chicken, to the elaborate techniques and geometrically-precise platings of the larger courses. I mean even the triple-cooked chips come lined up like a regimental drill. This is the kind of restaurant that wows you with style but grips you with substance, the modern lines of the presentation never promising more than the flavour of the top ingredients can deliver. I loved it, and I want to go back as soon as possible, and it's my favourite meal of 2022.

Despite the ongoing issues with, well let's face it, more or less bloody everything, there are nevertheless reasons to be optimistic about 2023. For a start, if restaurants were able to still innovate and impress given everything that's happened over the last twelve months, there's no reason to think they can't continue to do so in the future. Already my diary is filling up (sporadically, and slowly, but surely) with interesting bits and pieces, and there's a very exciting new place in Liverpool that's going to be one of my first reviews of the new year. In the meantime, thanks - again - for reading, and here's to hoping to many, many fine dinners over the next twelve months. Happy New Year.

Restaurant of the Year 2019 - The Fordwich Arms, Canterbury

If you're reading this, then somehow you made it through 2019. For that much at least, we should all give ourselves a pat on the back. In the face of crumbling democracies, looming autocracies, climate catastrophies and Sketch Mayfair winning 3 Michelin stars, we've somehow kept our heads, steeled our hearts and got on with the business of living, and eating, and drinking, as if it was our last chance to do so. Because God knows, maybe it is.

Yes, it's been a difficult year alright and it seems (from my own particularly biased perspective) that the restaurant industry itself, and those of us that spend our time enjoying the fruits of their labours, have more to worry about than most. And yet somehow, in these uncertain times and facing a frankly terrifying future, British food continues to adapt, innovate and improve. In London, exciting waste-free concepts like Silo are fighting the good fight against environmental armageddon, while out in the countryside places such as the Small Holding grow everything they need in their back garden farm or forage from the surrounding fields. If this is the future of British food, then maybe there's hope for us all yet.

But while environmental impact of a restaurant is an increasingly important, indeed planet-saving, consideration, to make my best-of-year requires an extra sprinkling of pixie dust. I've had some genuinely astonishing meals all up and down the country, but since a long, laughter-filled and legendary meal in November my mind, despite a couple of late challengers, has been made up. But before I get to that, I hope you'll indulge me as I introduce a few completely arbitrary categories so I can revisit as many of the year's highlights as I can get away with.

Best in London: Alyn Williams at the Westbury
Poor old Alyn faces a bit of an uncertain future following a falling out with his hotel restaurant's owners, but no external forces in politics or hospitality (or the politics of hospitality) can change the fact I had a truly exceptional meal here in August, and I'm happy to go on record to say that whatever the future holds, he is one of the very best chefs the country has to offer. A tasting menu in a five star hotel in Mayfair stands every chance of being, well, everything that's bad about tasting menus in five star hotels in Mayfair, but thanks to a youthful team, a dextrous command of technique and a blindingly obvious enthusiasm for the work, dinner here was equal parts joyful, impressive and surprising. Oh, and that langoustine consommé was out of this world.

Best in Liverpool: Pilgrim
I said last year, almost apologetically, that "Best in Liverpool" sounds rather like damning with faint praise, but at the rate the city's restaurants are improving, Best in Liverpool is actually now something to be exceedingly proud of. Pilgrim, very much against the trend in thrusting new restaurants in trendy new developments, draws most of its inspiration (and most of its ingredients) from the North West of Spain, but thanks to a kitchen that knows exactly what its doing with such extraordinary produce and a front of house that make you feel like the only diners in the room (even when, as is usually the case, the place is rammed to the hilt), it all still feels genuinely innovative. Oh and I'm sure Röski is still great too, I've just not been in 2019...

Best in Lancashire: The White Swan at Fence, the Parkers Arms (tied)
I can't choose between them, I won't choose between them, and you can't make me. I said in February that eating at the Parkers was as if someone had climbed inside my brain, made a note of all of my favourite things and then served them all, one after the other, until I had to beg them to stop. Smoked teal, langoustines with aioli, mutton pie, triple-cooked chips, a procession of the finest pub food in the country, chef Stosie is a magician with a charcoal grill, and would be a shoo-in for the best food in Lancashire as well if it wasn't for the White Swan, who in their very different, Michelin-friendly style have managed to make the finest ingredients of the North West of England sing to a different, equally magical tune. So I really hope they don't mind sharing this category; they're both death-row restaurants for me.

Best for pasta: Sugo Pasta Kitchen, Manchester (runner up: Bancone)
Since Padella burst onto the scene in 2016, London was supposed to have officially become, as a city, Good For Pasta, and yet the truth, as is so often the case, is more complicated than that. Trullo was doing top-quality sage & ricotta ravioli, for not much more money, years before that, and if you want to really dig back into the past it was the River Café in Hammersmith that got the first ball rolling. And in 2019, sure, there are plenty of pasta restaurants but how many are actually any good? Not many. But Bancone is the real deal - their silk handkerchief pasta a signature dish and work of culinary art - and up in Manchester, Sugo are, incredibly, even better (and, it goes without saying as it's in the North, cheaper).

Best Indian: Jamavar
A fair few contestants for best Indian restaurant this year, with Indian Accent, Kutir and Kahani all within shouting distance of the prize, but all things considered, and as much as I wish my favourite Indian restaurant wasn't an ultra-swanky ear-bleedingly expensive Mayfair joint, well, sometimes you've just got to admit when you're defeated. I love everything that Jamavar does, from the classy chutneys to the interesting bits of game they introduce in the autumn months, to the sparkling décor and slick service. But most of all I love their stone bass tikka, absolutely the best fish dish in London bar none. And if you don't agree with me, you haven't tried it yet.

Best chain: Shake Shack
To make my life easier, and save myself the agony of deciding which is my favourite burger out of the various mini-chains that exist in the capital, which would probably drive me completely loopy, I've decided to define a "chain" as anywhere with 10 or more branches. So ner. Anyway, I've been to Shake Shack far more times than is healthy in 2019 - there's one 10 minutes' walk from the office - and every single time I've come away happy. Consistency is only part of what makes their offering so good though - the burgers are carefully made, tastefully presented, and as long as you order correctly (that is, with all the salad, which provides much needed crunch and cuts through the slappy cheese) contain every single pleasure point of a good burger, including beef that's always seared to order to a lovely crunch. They're not cheap, but you get what you pay for - the best chain burger in the UK.

Best restaurant overall (runner-up): The Moorcock Inn
Before you go any further, I recommend you follow the Moorcock Inn's Instagram feed. A timeline of the insanely wonderful ingredients those guys get hold of and serve in their isolated pub high up over the Calder Valley, it will be home-grown velvet shank mushrooms one day, 300 year old mahogany clams the next, spider crab, sea urchin, local mutton, ingredients chosen with care and love, and presented with style. And this is exactly what you get when you sit down to dinner at the Moorcock, a parade of seasonal invention that costs a ludicrous £39 a head. Yes, you read that right, £39 a head.

Best restaurant overall: The Fordwich Arms
No matter how good the food was in the early days at this handsome 1920s pub on the outskirts of Canterbury, and believe me it started off fairly magnificently, each subsequent visit has been better, and better, and better. But even in late 2019, dining here is an experience akin to what it must have been like to go to the Fat Duck in the early 2000s, after the award of the first Michelin star (which Fordwich already have) but before it all went molecular - there's a feeling that they're only just getting started, that every new twist and turn of the menu points at much, much greater things to come.

But let's not dwell on the future. Fordwich Arms is, right now, arguably - and I'm here to make that argument - the best restaurant in Britain. Previous visits have all rewarded remarkable meals, but on this most recent trip some of the dishes - citrus-sharp chickpea fritters with wild garlic aioli, white truffle shaved onto creamed potato and maderia sauce, duck consommé steeped in autumn herbs - provoked something close to a religious experience; we were literally in raptures. Eating here is a profound, and lasting privilege, and it is, unambigiously, my Restaurant of the Year.

This is the part of my final 2019 post when I try to make some point about the grand state of things, of British food in general and the restaurant industry in particular, but to be honest this year I'm at a bit of a loss. There are just so, so many reasons to be deeply pessimistic about the future that the fact we're not already all gibbering wrecks trapping wild rats for food is a daily bonus, so maybe the best way of approaching the coming year is just to enjoy each day as it comes, in the best way we know how. Cherish your favourite eating spots, bestow custom on your local pubs and bars, reward anyone making the world a better place and encourage them to carry on doing so. For as long as it lasts, there's an awful lot around to enjoy, and if - when - one day finally it all goes tits up, and you're sat on the roof of your flooded home watching the fascist gunboats approach on the horizon at least you can look back and say you made the most of it. Or maybe, just maybe, it will all be alright in the end. I guess there's only one way to find out.

Restaurant of the Year 2018 - The Parkers Arms, Bowland

Looking back over the candidates for Restaurant of the Year from the last 12 months, it's glaringly obvious that I've had far more successful meals outside of the M25 than within. On the one hand this is merely a continuation of a trend which began many years ago, with the rise of Cornwall, Yorkshire and Lancashire as mature food destinations and the inevitable rise of London rents forcing independent restaurants there to get clever, or get out.

But somehow, this year, the growth of regional fine dining (or at least good dining) feels more substantial, and more significant. It seems whenever I spot a likely candidate in Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester or Liverpool (usually though by no means always in the pages of the national newspapers), and hop on a train up North, I'm not only stunned by the quality of the restaurant but increasingly spoiled for choice - so much so that narrowing it down to just a final few for this post was a genuinely distressing process. Still, here we are, and with the greatest of apologies to anyone I've left out, here are my favourite restaurants of 2018:

Best in the South - The Fordwich Arms

At the time of my last visit I said that there was an argument to be made that this handsome mock-Tudor building in the Kentish countryside houses the best restaurant in the country. Maybe one day I will make that argument, but for now I hope they'll be happy in just being one of the best. Confident, ambitious cooking that never sacrifices flavour for technique, if you don't leave Fordwich beaming from ear to ear you haven't got a heart. If it wasn't in such a bloody awkward location, served by such a terrible train company, I'd go every week.

Best in London - Perilla, Newington Green

One of the few London restaurants that have really impressed this year, Perilla started at an already impressive level and just got better and better and better. The lamb fat bread is already a thing of legend, but these guys never sit still, and in two visits it was the only element that remained unchanged - everything else was brand new, inventive, big on flavour and served with heart. The local restaurant everyone wishes they had.

Honourable mention: The relaunched Tamarind, Mayfair whose 'Pink peppercorn chicken' will live long in memory, and Kutir, Chelsea, the latest success in chef Rohit Ghai's already impressive CV.

Best in London (runner-up) - St. Leonard's, Shoreditch

Though the names behind St. Leonard's already had a pretty good pedigree when it came to running restaurants, nobody (least of all me) was prepared for quite how good this place ended up being, and quite how boldly different it dared to be. Best described as seasonal cooking with the odd Asian influence, nowhere else in town is anything like it, and there's hardly a thing on the menu you wouldn't want to order, eat, and order again, from the exquisitely constructed dressed oysters to vast sharing portions of Challans duck, or monkfish bronzed with sea buckthorn molasses. Add in an interesting wine list (I know it's interesting because I don't recognise any of the names) and sparkling service, and you have one of the best places to drop a chunk of your dinner money.

Honourable mention: Anglo, Farringdon, which served a cracking tasting menu in October and can cook a bit of fish better than most I can think of.

Best in Liverpool - Röski

OK, so 'best in Liverpool' sounds rather like damning with faint praise, but please take my word for it that there's nothing qualified about my praise for Röski. A tasting menu full of passion and skill and, yes, local humour (the 'Scouse' served on a glass skull still makes me smile), that there is finally - finally a fine dining restaurant worth recommending in town would make this Liverpool-born blogger proud enough, but that I left this handsome Rodney Street location having had one of the best dinners of 2018 made me want to shout from the rooftops. Come to Liverpool, foodie thrill-seekers and restaurant junkies. They're ready for you now.

Best in Manchester - Mana

When I said on Twitter that Mana was a better restaurant than Noma, I was perhaps being a little hyperbolic. I'd had a lovely evening in great company and quite a few matching wines. But I will say this - I enjoyed Mana, the experience of eating there and the exhausting effort that they put into all their dishes, much more than that place in Copenhagen, because perhaps all that food needed, intelligent and influential though it undoubtedly is, was to be treated to a bit of Manchester heart and soul. Dishes that at Noma left me cold and confused were transformed in this beautiful, energetic space into something much more relatable, and relevant. Noma was impressive, Mana is joyous. But you don't need to worry about comparisons and rankings from nerds like me - just go, you'll love it. I promise.

Best in Sheffield - Jöro

Another restaurant inspired by New Nordic cuisine, and another restaurant in a smart, friendly space in an industrial Northern town. From the very first bite of the artfully-constructed snacks to the final sip of sticky wine, Jöro seems determined to make you fall in love with it at every turn, not just from the incredible food or sparkling service but that at the end of it all they'll give you a bill for about half what you might expect to pay elsewhere (the tasting menu is £45) and they don't even ask for a tip.

Restaurant of the Year 2018 - The Parkers Arms, Newton-in-Bowland

I love fine dining, I really do - I'll cross continents for it, organise entire holidays around it, pay through the nose for it. I'm lucky to have had some truly exceptional meals that a great deal of very talented people toiled long hours to make, and I consider every one of the places above to be more than worthy of the money they're asking. But the very best food I've eaten all year is made by a chef working in a kitchen alone (I think) out of a pub buried deep in the Lancashire countryside, whose every plate of food is touched with utter magic.

The Parkers Arms is, on one level, "just" a pub. It serves pints of beer, it has a nice log fireplace in winter, it does pies and fresh fish and steak and chips. It does these things because it is a pub, and people expect these things from a pub, and if people expect pies and chips then why not just make the best bloody pies in the country, and gorgeous, golden-brown triple-cooked chips to go with them.

But don't stop there, because the menu at the Parkers is both a hymn to the seasons, and a hyper-local tribute to the bounty on their Bowland doorstep. Many ingredients are gathered from the surrounding hills and farms, and indeed one in dish of grouse I had a year or so ago there wasn't a single ingredient from further than a mile away, including the bird itself. Cooking like this, making the very best of what's available that day, requires a dexterity and imagination in the kitchen very few restaurants at any level possess - to find it in an otherwise unassuming country pub filled with a happy mix of locals, hikers and dogs is something truly special. It's the platonic ideal of a country pub, that somehow surpasses my extraordinarily high expectations every time I go, and I really can't praise it enough.


So, let's have more of the same in 2019, please - at least, for as long as we can. Along with the rest of the world I'm hoping to God some of the more dire predictions concerning Brexit don't come true - but I guess we'll know soon enough. And if we do end next year foraging for tinned goods in a post-apocalyptic wasteland well, at least we could say it was good while it lasted, and it was a pleasure to have all of you along for the ride. So many thanks, once again, for reading and following, and have a very Happy New Year.

Restaurant of the Year 2017 - The Holborn Dining Room

Well, we survived. This time in 2016 I was typing with trembling fingers in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump, unsure of what it meant for the health of the UK's restaurant industry and the continued survival of the human species generally. I still don't know exactly how things will play out (if you do, for the love of God let someone in authority know), but though I still do occasionally wake up screaming at night, cutting the TV news out of my morning routine and blocking anyone with a flag next to their name on Twitter has helped with the panic attacks. I can thoroughly recommend doing both.

And to be fair, so far - so far - life appears to continue somewhat as normal. From the pace, and quality, of new restaurants appearing over the last twelve months you wouldn't know Armageddon in any form looms in the next couple of years, and whether this is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic or a genuine belief amongst restaurateurs that things will indeed be OK In The End, well, the effect is the same - lots of genuinely brilliant places to eat, in London and all up and down the country. So, without further ado...



Best Newcomer (London) - Xu

A huge amount of competition for Best Newcomer this year - again - so I've decided to split the category into inside and outside the M25. Runner-up mentions must go to Jamavar, a swanky restaurant in Mayfair which continues to push the possibilities of high-end Indian cuisine and serves food of such exquisite flavour and precision that it almost makes you forget the prices you're paying for it. Also, just nipping in at the end of 2017 is Parsons, which manages to be some kind of platonic ideal of the seafood restaurant. Great ingredients, treated well, served at a decent mark-up. Nothing much not to love.

But overall, the best new restaurant needs not to merely be good, but groundbreaking. Xu serves the kind of food I'd not seen before in London - high-end Taiwanese - and is as good as ambassador for it as you can possibly imagine. Flavours are bold, but balanced, and full of interesting twists and turns; presentations are as careful and geometric as architecture, colourful and clever; and you'll enjoy it all in a cosy, clubby space that makes the most of its small Chinatown footprint. I'm baffled that not everyone loves the place; maybe they just don't deserve to be happy.



Best Newcomer (outside London) - Where The Light Gets In

If someone had told me when I was growing up in North Merseyside/West Lancashire - a part of the country that could charitably be described as "beige" - that there would one day exist there a Michelin-starred fine dining modern British restaurant in the l'Enclume vein, set in acres of kitchen gardens and with its own cheese and charcuterie rooms, I'd have assumed you were as detatched from reality and sense as the customers I regularly served at the Ormskirk Abbey National during my teens. But there Moor Hall is anyway, and I somewhat suspect despite its location rather than because of it, it's utterly wonderful.

But wonderful though Moor Hall is, there's a bright little spot in Stockport that somehow managed to upstage even that temple of gastronomic achievement. Where The Light Gets In is everything that's good, and decent, and rewarding about eating out in this country, all in one beautiful package. The food served is exciting and technically proficient without being difficult; they wear their environmental waste-free credentials on their sleeves without being preachy or - crucially - without the product suffering at all, in fact if anything it seems to make more sense that certain ingredients crop up in various different forms throughout the menu. But mainly it's just impossible to sit down for dinner here and not have the time of your life.



Best Restaurant 2017 - The Holborn Dining Rooms

First, some runners up. I split the newcomers category into London/Outside London mainly because I wanted the excuse to list more places, but in all honesty there's no point any longer in pretending that Not London needs any kind of advantage any more. Anyone who's ever eaten at any of the restaurants immediately above, or at the glorious Parkers Arms serving ingredients gathered from the surrounding fields, or the Rat Inn with their giant, generous hug of a menu of seasonal beauty, or indeed the magical Coomebshead Farm with its mangalitza pigs and rural idyll, will conclude that these are just as deserving of national attention as anywhere down south. We are all the richer for their existence, but residents of Lancashire and Northumberland and Cornwall in particular should be intensely proud of these gems on their doorstep.

And so too at l'Enclume, which is still the standard-bearer of modern British food, and where far from settling for their two Michelin stars and international fame have expanded their test kitchen Aulis into London, expanded their horticulture and animal husbandry operations up in Cartmel, and drawn up plans to have a kind of California-style outdoor BBQ operation in the middle of their farm (can you imagine how much fun that will be).

But as much fun as I've had at these places, my overall favourite restaurant of 2017 is closer to home. Closer to home, and closer to work - about 30 seconds walk from the office, in fact. You'll have heard all about Calum Franklin's wonderful pastry work, and I imagine your Instagram feeds have, like mine, been enriched with his mahogany brown pâté en croûtes and gleaming game pithiviers. You probably feel like you know his work inside out, even if you've never been to Holborn. But there are two points worth making while I have your attention.

Firstly, these extraordinary examples of savoury pastry work taste even better than they look - this is by no means a purely visual endeavour. The jelly that binds the meat is packed full of flavour and dissolves in the mouth to silky, porky heaven, and the ingredients (pork, duck, rabbit, whatever he thinks will work) are top notch. Secondly, while it's true that certain hotel staples that lurk on the menu are mainly to keep the tourists happy (the burger is a bit half-hearted), Franklin has gradually been shaping the menu to his own image over the years and there are some real non-pastry gems to be found now as well. Try the lobster thermidor tart, or the octopus, or the elderflower jelly dessert - all of which are outstanding, superb advertisements for British food both in that gleaming dining room and, via Instagram, the wider world.

While the grand Rosewood hotel on High Holborn has, it's true, had a lot of my custom this year because it's so handy, I suppose it could be argued that gave them something of an unfair advantage. On the other hand, the fact I go there so bloody often and have a consistently wonderful time (the staff are so friendly you'll want to invite them home for Christmas) is testament to just how impressive an operation this is. It's the most Cheese and Biscuits stress-tested restaurant in London, and I still look forward to going back every time. So, last year's runner up is this year's winner. And thoroughly deserved, I'm sure you'll agree.



So, where do we go from here? Time was I'd use this opportunity to make some grand prediction about the future of London dining, or what crazy new trend or fusion experiment I hope to see the next time the Just Opened newsletter (subscribe here) drops in my inbox. I have a wishlist of places I need to get round to - Clipstone, Westerns Laundry, even Le Gavroche still eludes me. And I'd like to visit a few more super-gastropubs up in Lancashire; the Freemasons at Wiswell, and the Swan at Fence to name but two.

But you know what? In the current climate I have a horrible feeling planning anything much at all would be tempting fate; I'll settle for continued survival. So I'll just say thanks to all of you for reading, and following, and sharing, and making whatever contribution - large or small - to the joy of eating out in the UK, for however long it may continue. Happy Christmas.

Restaurant of the Year 2016 - The Quality Chop House

There’s no point avoiding the obvious, so we may as well start with it. For anyone even remotely invested in the business of eating out in this country, anyone who appreciates sparkling service, great food, wonderful cheese, fine wine; anyone who’s involved in the restaurant trade either as a genial host or a grateful guest; certain events of 2016 have conspired to stun, depress and terrify. Looking back over the first few months of the year it seems like a different, kinder world, where even an enforced trip to the JRC Global Buffet in a car park in Croydon seems tinged with the warm glow of pre-apocalyptic naivety. I look back on those miserable plates of deep-fried brownfood eaten in a hospital waiting room with discarded chips trodden into the floor and think “what I wouldn’t give to be back there now”.

Well, not quite. But the whole business does make you look with new eyes upon the restaurants and bars, and food producers and importers of London and elsewhere, anywhere that clever, passionate people are doing the thing that they love and to the benefit of us all, and think that to lose even the tiniest bit of that would be a complete and utter tragedy. And I hope to the very ends of hell that I’m worrying unnecessarily and everything will be OK In The End but it’s going to take an awful lot of good news to stop me waking up screaming in the middle of the night never mind feeling positive again about the future.

So perhaps, in the meantime, before it either is OK In The End or we just start hurtling screaming towards the apocalypse, we should just make the most of what we have. Because what we do have, right now, in December 2016, for however long it lasts, is the most exciting, dynamic, exhilarating and rewarding food and drink scene on the entire planet and I’ve felt uniquely privileged to have been able to make the most of it. Here the places that have in the last twelve months, above all else, made me happy – not to mention relieved – to be alive.


Best Newcomer – Kiln / Padella / Smokestak (tied)

Look, I know it’s a bit of a copout to choose two never mind three equal winners in a single category, but the fact is I could not, even with a gun to my head, choose between these equally technically accomplished and sensationally exciting operations, and so I’m afraid a joint win it is. First to Kiln, who like so many of the very best restaurants, came up with a completely new twist on a familiar cuisine, adding sparkle and invention while keeping all of the flavours and traditions that make Thai food so special. The short, daily-changing menu is packed with unusual ingredients, and the no-reservations turnover means you can enjoy it all for far less money than you might expect.

Turning the same level of passion and skill to Italian food, Padella made London realise that however much we thought we’d had good pasta, up until this shiny, marble-decked spot opened in Borough Market in April, we really, really hadn’t. The whole menu is a joy, as is the experience of ordering it, but you’d have to have a heart made of stone not to fall instantly head-over-heels for the pici cacio & pepe, a minimalist masterpiece of stark, pepper-spiked beauty.

And finally Smokestak, who proved that there’s no style of cuisine that can’t be saved from the dumbing-down effect of chains and supermarket shelves given a true pit-crafter’s eye. Their brisket is the supreme example of its kind, marbled with fat and with a dark, complex bark, and worth the journey alone. But further unusual delights lurk in the rest of the menu, such as the mushrooms on beef dripping toast which is already gathering a fan club of its own.


Best Outside of London – The Royal Oak, Paley St (special mention the Sticky Walnut group)

Outside the “anything-goes” culture of central London (and with a few notable exceptions elsewhere in the country that exist in their own creative bubble), restaurants often have a very difficult job to do in balancing cutting-edge cuisine – and all of the time and effort and expense that entails – with the demands of a local audience. This is why places such as Sticky Truffle in Chester and its sister restaurants in Heswall and Manchester (and soon – joy! – Liverpool) are so crucial for the future dining health of the nation, because they tread that fine line between value, quality and accessibility and prove that when all those things are right, people will pay for it. And so a very honourable mention goes to Gary Usher and his teams up in the North West, from which I hope and expect you’ll be hearing a lot more in the coming months.

But while Sticky Walnut is the local restaurant everyone wishes they had, and could have, the Royal Oak is the kind of place that is necessarily a one-off. Yes, in true local restaurant style the menu is welcoming and accessible, with things like Scotch Eggs and pork chops and triple-cooked chips meaning there are few people with a working digestive system that couldn’t find something to enjoy. But what’s hard to accurately convey using mere blog posts is just how perfect everything is that they set their mind to, from the service, the surroundings of this ancient building in the Berkshire countryside, to – of course – the food, every bit of which you’d happily order again given the first opportunity. Even the journey to get to it (a combination of unreliable trains and rather expensive cabs in most cases) just puts the reward of eating there into sharper relief.


Runner up – the Holborn Dining Rooms

Before you get trapped in a fruitless Google search, let me stop you – I have never given the Holborn Dining Rooms its own blog post. This is a terrible omission, and they certainly more than deserve one, but I do have an excuse. The thing is, the HDR is right next to the office, and rather than make one or two comprehensive visits with my camera like I’d do to most restaurants, I have visited this grand dining room with its phalanx of helpful staff countless times over the last couple of years, from anything so simple as a bowl of soup to the latest and greatest of chef Calum Franklin’s creations.

Because this is no normal hotel restaurant. True, they serve an enticing, elegant menu of modern British dishes, from dressed Cornish crab and native oysters to an award-winning Scotch egg and a rich, buttery chicken & girolles pie. They do all these things with style and a smile, alongside fine wines and (with the help of Scarfe’s Bar next door) a very comprehensive spirit collection. But this is the Rosewood, the classiest of classy five-star hotels, and we’re in the middle of London, so you’d expect them to have spent a bit of money on the place.

What sets the Holborn Dining Rooms apart are the side projects that chef Calum occasionally embarks upon, and announces to the world via his Instagram feed. What first had my jaw dropping to the floor was a grouse pithivier that appeared as an off-menu “special request” in August, and you’ll have to take my word it tasted every bit as good as it looked, complex and powerfully gamey, with a meaty Madeira jus that could bring you to tears. Then, in early December, his Christmas pâté en croûte appeared, a breath-taking work of pastry genius, an entire posh Christmas dinner containing turkey and bacon around a sage and onion stuffing centre, a truly astonishing thing. To do this kind of work under any conditions would be impressive; to fit them around his full-time job as head chef of a busy all-day five-star hotel kitchen is utterly staggering, and deserves every bit of recognition that will surely come his way.


Restaurant of the Year 2016 – The Quality Chop House

Quality Chop House was always in the running for the top prize, as anyone who’s ever eaten there will understand. It is one of London’s leading examples of the restaurant craft, a classy and comfortable spot a few steps away from the foodie hub of Exmouth Market that makes the most of its historic setting and gorgeous period detail (it’s been a restaurant for the best part of 150 years) with warm and attentive service and the kind of menu that you want to take home and frame.

Quality Chop specialise in game, and while supply of the most interesting stuff can be – necessarily – erratic, if you have even the slightest interest in this country’s incredible bounty of feathered food, this should be your first port of call. Woodcock, snipe, mallard, teal, grouse (obviously), diver (a new one on me, pictured above, like mallard but with a more powerful flavour), partridge, pheasant, you name it – if it has a beak and you can eat it, it’s made an appearance on the QCH menu at some point, always cooked perfectly, served with God’s Own chicken liver pâté, bread sauce with delicate, greaseless potato crisps, and various other delightful accompaniments.

Of course, it’s not all about the game. Their seafood is top-notch too, a crab and Jerusalem artichoke dish being particularly knockout on a recent visit, and I’ve heard their white truffle risotto is a thing of wonder. With so much invention and risk-taking going on, it’s inevitable that some dishes will end up noble failures – I still shudder from the memory of a cod chitterlings dish from a couple of years back, though quite why I ordered fish guts and then complained about being given fish guts is perhaps an issue for my therapist. But where else would even attempt a dish this mad? It’s all part of the place’s slightly eccentric English charm.

So far so excellent, and certainly one of London’s greatest restaurants, no question. But why the best? Well perhaps little more than in these deeply troubling times I find myself increasingly looking for restaurants to make me feel settled and welcome as well as serving incredible food, where I can do old fashioned things such as book a table at a particular time, and not have to queue up in the rain or have it wrestled back off me before I’ve finished my post-dessert brandy. Quality Chop is the kind of place where you want to spend all day, but crucially it’s also the kind of place where you can spend all day, working your way through that extraordinary menu, cossetted by fine wines and capable staff and gradually sinking into a boozy afternoon coma as if I were an elderly patient in a nursing home.

As a final example of how highly I regard the place, I took a small group of friends there for my birthday. They had a “game-hung chicken” menu on special that day, which turned out by general consensus to be one of the most brilliant things any of us had eaten this year. Decadent chicken consommé poured into fine china, fluffy bread rolls made with schmaltz, a very clever terrine made with pressed chicken skins topped with a roast heart, it was all utterly brilliant. A highlight of the year. So here is my thank-you, Quality Chop House, and expect to see me darkening your doors many times more over the next 12 months.

Oh, and one more thing. The confit potato. ‘Nuff said.


So that was 2016, and yes, some of it was bone-chillingly terrifying but still, plenty of it was lovely, and always amidst the doom and gloom there are good people doing good things who deserve our appreciation (and custom) more than ever. As long as there are good restaurants there are good times to be had, and I’m buggered if I’m going to let the collapse of liberal western democracy and impending global nuclear war spoil it any time soon. So chin up, best foot forward and until it all collapses around our ears let’s make the most of it. Because when it’s all over and I’m queuing up at the pearly gates the least I want to be able to say is that I had a bloody good dinner.