The Top 72 Places to Eat Near Sapori
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A Neapolitan family runs this Italian restaurant out of a substantial Victorian building in an Anstey suburb, the contrast between the ornate exterior and the sleek, mildly glitzy interior being very much part of the charm. The open kitchen pass lets you watch the cooks, which pairs well with the kind of warm, unguarded service that makes a place feel like someone's actually glad you came.
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A 16th-century farmhouse on a working 400-acre estate where the chef grew up, now earning a Michelin star for tasting menus built almost entirely from what his brother grows and raises next door. Exposed beams, brick, and the kind of provenance story that usually sounds like marketing but here is just geography. Drinks downstairs first, then up to the dining room, where the cooking is personal enough to riff on duck pancakes without embarrassment.
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A flyover and a shabby lane lead you to Sat Bains' two Michelin star tasting menu restaurant, which is either a statement of intent or a very good joke, probably both. Inside, 28 covers keep things intimate, and you can also book the four-seat Kitchen Bench in the pastry section or watch the savoury kitchen from the Tasting Room. The cooking shifts constantly, dish by dish, week by week, restless by design.
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Rank 4. alchemilla
Modern British
Vaulted red-brick arches from a Victorian carriage house give Alchemilla its bones, while a living wall and roof garden signal that the chef had other ideas. Alex Bond's Michelin-starred modern British cooking leans hard into contrast, pairing sweet, sour, and citrus in ways that feel intuitive rather than engineered. The wine list tilts natural and slightly esoteric, which fits the room perfectly.
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Rank 5. Hambleton Hall
British
Rutland Water sits just outside the windows, which sets the tone before the food arrives. Hambleton Hall is a country house hotel dining room holding a Michelin star, where the kitchen has been run by the same chef since the early nineties, long enough to have a signature without trying. The cooking is classical but not frozen in amber, and the wine list runs to 400 bins, clearly someone's life's work.
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Rank 6. Hammer & Pincers
Modern British
An old water pump out back is all that remains of the village forge this place used to be. Now it's an intimate restaurant in rural Leicestershire, running a seasonally driven tasting menu of ambitious, layered dishes. The beef Wellington arrives whole and gets sliced tableside, which sounds fussy but lands as genuine theatre. Boutique rooms are available if you'd rather not navigate country lanes afterward.
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Rank 7. Ibérico World Tapas
Mediterranean
The dining room sits in the vaulted basement of Nottingham's old city law courts, which does give a certain dramatic quality to ordering small plates. Ibérico is a tapas restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and its menu roams well beyond Spain, pulling in yuzu and dukkah alongside the Mediterranean anchors. Four dishes a head is about right. The crowd tends toward people who've been before and already know what they're getting.
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Rank 8. Kushi-Ya
Japanese
Tucked behind the arch of Enfield Chambers, this compact Japanese small-plates and skewers spot holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The charcoal grill does most of the talking, turning out skewers that smell like they mean it. No bookings, so the lunchtime crowd forms early and moves fast. A courtyard terrace softens the urgency once you're in. The kind of place where the bill arrives and you quietly do the math twice.
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Rank 9. Hitchen's Barn
Modern British
A converted stone barn on the edge of Rutland that feels like someone's particularly well-organized farmhouse, this Modern British restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and prices things accordingly. The seasonal menu changes enough to keep regulars coming back, and the front-of-house warmth is the unforced kind that's harder to pull off than it looks. The wine list matches the food's price point, which, in this economy, is its own gesture of goodwill.
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Rank 10. Piccalilli
Modern British
Down an alley and up a stairs in central Nottingham, Piccalilli is a small-plates spot tucked inside a period building with exposed brick, heavy timbers, and dried flowers overhead. The kind of room that makes you feel you've found something. Three or four plates per person is the move, and the cooking keeps flavours familiar enough to trust while doing something considered with them. The wine list is short and fairly priced. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 11. The Martins Arms
British
The carved Jacobean fireplace in the bar is reason enough to take a seat and stay awhile. This is a traditional country pub and dining room in the Nottinghamshire countryside, doing hearty British cooking without apology. The local Stilton is the thing to order: Colston Bassett is one of only six places in the world licensed to make it, so skipping the cheese course here would be a genuine act of self-sabotage.
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Rank 12. The Two Pigs
Modern British
The name changed from the Red Lion to The Two Pigs in 2023, and so did pretty much everything else. It's a gastropub in a Staffordshire village, doing modern pub classics with produce from local farmers and a micro-farm next door. Weekend brunches, Sunday roasts, seasonal cocktails, and bar snacks running all day give the place an all-hours, good-time quality that most gastropubs only manage for dinner service.
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Rank 13. Raymond's
Modern British
Fish crackling lands first, a snack that functions as a mission statement for the meal ahead. Raymond's is a sharing-plates spot in Nottingham's Lace Market, the kind of room with counter seats, moody lighting, and a wine list heavy on by-the-glass options, as if someone sat down and ticked every box on the modern restaurant checklist. The crowd seems entirely unbothered by that, and honestly, so will you.
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A farmstead restaurant built with reclaimed materials from the very land it sits on, which tells you something about how the chef thinks. Jericho runs a surprise tasting menu, so the kitchen decides, and courses lean heavily on game, wood fire, and whatever the kitchen garden is doing that week. It's rural Leicestershire, deeply so, and the wine list follows the same logic: natural, organic, biodynamic.
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A former silk mill canteen beside a weir on the River Derwent, this modern brasserie has the kind of setting that does half the work. Ask for a window table upstairs or a spot on the narrow terrace and watch the water. The menu ranges wide, from wood-fired plates and pasta through to steaks, including a tomahawk built for two, so the table tends to last a while.
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Rank 16. Upstairs by Tom Shepherd
Modern British
A tasting menu restaurant sitting above a jewellery shop in the middle of Lichfield, which is either the most unexpected address in the Midlands or a perfectly on-brand piece of theatre. Tom Shepherd holds a Michelin star, Staffordshire's first, and runs tight, unfussy modern British menus where each dish lands on two or three elements and earns every one of them. The room is 36 covers, warm, unhurried, and genuinely hard to book.
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Rank 17. The Two Pigs
British
A snug bar, a slightly more formal dining room, and a terrace for when England briefly cooperates: this is a country pub doing what the form asks, and doing it with evident pleasure. The menu runs classic British, from Welsh rarebit through smoked haddock fishcake to pork schnitzel, and the trifle has a reputation. The same owner runs The Boat in Lichfield, so the hospitality instincts are well exercised.
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Dinner here begins with a walk through a restored Victorian kitchen garden, which turns out to be less preamble and more the whole point. Grace & Savour is a fine dining restaurant built into the walled garden of a country estate, with a long tasting menu shaped by what the soil is actually producing that week. A Michelin star and a spot on the National Restaurant Awards list. Foraging and preservation do a lot of the work on the plate.
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Rank 19. The Cross
Contemporary British Pub
The dining room here was once a schoolroom, and the hand bell wall lamps haven't let anyone forget it. This Michelin-starred gastropub in a restored Grade II listed inn does serious British cooking, the kind that follows the seasons closely and sources with equal care. The back room looks straight onto the kitchen pass if you want the theatre. The tasting menu is how the kitchen makes its fullest argument.
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Rank 20. The Reindeer
British
A village pub down a narrow country lane in Nottinghamshire, with a view over the local cricket pitch that does a lot of the decorating. The cooking is resolutely traditional, bangers and mash and Sunday roasts done with care, plus a weekly pie night whose fillings change to keep regulars guessing. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which feels about right for a place this unfussy and this good at the basics.
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Rank 21. Olive Branch & Beech House
Traditional British
Stone walls, wooden beams, and a fire that earns its keep make this Rutland village pub exactly what it promises to be. The kitchen leans into hearty British classics, sourcing locally and growing vegetables in their own garden. Confit duck, fish and chips, the kind of food you want after a country walk. Beech House, just across the road, handles the overnight question for anyone not ready to leave Clipsham quite yet.
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Rank 22. The Boat
Modern British Pub
A Michelin-starred gastropub on a busy A-road outside Lichfield, which is either a strike against it or the whole point, depending on how you feel about destination dining. The kitchen runs a small on-site farm that feeds the menu, with local producers covering the rest, all handled with the kind of precision that makes a venison dish feel considered rather than merely seasonal. The chefs come out to explain what's on the plate, and somehow it doesn't feel annoying.
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Rank 24. Kynd
Contemporary British
Coal smoke and kitchen garden vegetables set the tone at this contemporary British restaurant tucked into an old furnace house on the Hampton Manor estate. It's the more relaxed sibling to the estate's fine-dining room, with open-fire cooking and produce pulled from the walled garden just outside. The wine list leans natural, biodynamic, and orange. In summer, the former greenhouse opens with its own terrace.
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Rank 25. Lighthouse Restaurant
Modern British
A self-taught chef running an intimate Modern British restaurant in the Derbyshire countryside sounds like either a love story or a cautionary tale; here it's the former. The menu swings between a full tasting format and a shorter sharing menu on weekdays, with the kitchen leaning hard into seasonal cooking and the occasional Thai-inspired detour, like a coconut and chilli broth that earns its place on the table.
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A pub whose back garden is so large it hosts its own Oktoberfest, sausage toss included. Inside, The Black Pug is a warren of cosy rooms; outside, there's covered seating, an outdoor bar, and enough room for a grumble of actual pugs, which is both the collective noun and, on any given weekend, an accurate headcount. Pizza Monday, Taco Tuesday, and free kids' meals on Friday keep the locals cycling through. Star Pub of the Year at the Great British Pub Awards 2025.
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Rank 27. Cheal's
Modern British
A model Spitfire hangs from the ceiling and Union Jacks line the curtains, so nobody's leaving confused about the theme. This is a polished modern British restaurant in a half-timbered Knowle building, running fixed-price and tasting menus built around prime British produce. The adjoining Warren's Bar does small plates if you'd rather keep things lighter, which is a genuinely useful option when the tasting menu commitment feels like a lot on a Tuesday.
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Rank 28. Opheem
Contemporary Indian
A self-described Brummie of Bangladeshi heritage, Aktar Islam runs this two Michelin star contemporary Indian tasting menu restaurant in Birmingham city centre more like a modern European kitchen than anything you'd expect. The space is strikingly spare, the cooking is deeply researched, and a single potato dish can involve three separate cooking methods before it reaches the table. The set lunch keeps it from feeling like a special-occasion-only proposition.
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Rank 29. Adam's
Modern New American
The art-deco dining room on Waterloo Street has been around forever, and the cocktail bar that greets you sets the tone for what follows: this is a tasting-menu restaurant that takes itself seriously without going stiff. The kitchen works modern and occasionally playful, letting high-quality ingredients do the arguing rather than oversaucing them. A Michelin star. The wine list runs deep, and the pairings will nudge the bill skyward in the most civilized way possible.
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Dark walls, a thumping soundtrack, and a kitchen that ages ingredients in-house set the tone at this Michelin-starred modern tasting menu restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter. Chef Alex Claridge has a reputation for cooking that surprises without showing off, pairing unexpected flavors and textures in ways that hold together. Wine flights and inventive non-alcoholic pairings both get serious treatment, so nobody at the table feels like an afterthought.
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Rank 31. The Six Bells
British
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A small, unfussy restaurant on Warwick's market square, in a building that has been a tailor's shop and, later, a restaurant called Tailors, which explains the name. The chef cooks hearty, classically rooted dishes with a light sense of play, and the room runs with the easy warmth of two old friends who seem genuinely glad you showed up. The wine flights, carefully put together, are a good reason to hand over the choosing.
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Rank 33. The Warwick
Modern British
Wood-panelled walls and a garden terrace inside a part-Edwardian manor make the setting feel like a prop from a very tasteful period drama. The Warwick is a country house dining room that leans into the produce rather than the pomp, with a seasonal menu that keeps its focus firmly on what's growing nearby. On a warm evening, the terrace does most of the convincing before the food even arrives.
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Graffiti covers the walls, the music is loud, and the whole room is shot in monochrome, which is either very cool or a lot, depending on your tolerance for a statement. Inside Birmingham's old Custard Factory, this is a tasting-menu restaurant where the kitchen leans into playful, creative cooking, with unexpected flavour pairings and contrasts in texture and temperature driving each dish. The wine list is short but pours generously by the glass.
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Rank 35. Dough & Brew
Sourdough Pizza
Sourdough pizza in a relaxed Warwick spot that leans more weekend-in-the-pub than Naples-by-the-book, and that's entirely the point. Dough & Brew is a casual pizzeria with a convivial streak, where the dough gets serious attention and the atmosphere stays loose. It doesn't chase the Neapolitan tradition; it runs its own Anglo-modern formula instead, which 50 Top Pizza Europe has noted among its excellent pizzerias.
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The milk loaf arrives with malt vinegar and chicken fat, and the room snaps into focus from there. Glynn Purnell's modern sharing-plates restaurant sits among the glass towers of a newer Birmingham quarter, running a fluid menu of snacks, small plates, and platters that shift with what's good. The team knows the wine list well and will steer you without making it a lesson.
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Rank 37. Land
Pan-Asian Vegetarian
Tucked into the Victorian ironwork of Great Western Arcade, Land is a small, intimate vegetarian restaurant running a set menu that's almost entirely vegan. Pan-Asian touches show up throughout, carrot char siu sitting alongside sake lees and other quietly surprising moves. The menu shifts with the seasons, and the cooking has a genuinely inventive streak that doesn't feel like it's trying to win you over. Wine flights are available, and the service is warm without hovering.
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Rank 38. Asha's
Indian
The restaurant takes its name from Bollywood legend Asha Bhosle, who is, among her many talents, apparently also a restaurateur. This Indian dining room in central Birmingham runs through the subcontinent's regions at some breadth, with tandoori kebabs as the anchor and a generous spread of vegetarian dishes alongside. The kitchen cooks with enough confidence that the menu's ambition rarely outpaces the plate.
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Rank 39. Folium
Modern British
A two-person operation in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, where one half cooks and the other runs the room with the kind of warmth that makes a small restaurant feel like a dinner party. The interior leans into neutral tones and pot plants, calm enough to let seasonal tasting menus do the talking. Modern British cooking with a personal stamp on the flavours and plating, served at lunch or in longer form come evening.
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Rank 40. Albatross Death Cult
Seafood Japanese
The name comes from Coleridge's albatross, which is either a promising omen or a warning, depending on how you read the poem. Either way, this counter-dining seafood restaurant in Birmingham pulls you in fast: chefs, sommeliers, and servers all talk to you like they mean it. The Japanese-inflected tasting menu leans heavily on raw and cured fish, keeping preparations spare enough that the seafood does the actual arguing.
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Rank 41. Prévost @ Haycock Manor
Modern New American
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Rank 42. Satori
Japanese
A Japanese restaurant in Moseley where the meal can end with a dessert set on fire at the table, which feels like a reasonable way to close things out. The menu covers a lot of ground, from sushi and sashimi to tempura and robata-grilled cuts, so this is the kind of place where a group with different appetites tends to work well. The room runs busy most nights, which tells you something about how the neighborhood feels about it.
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Rank 44. The Duncombe Arms
Modern British
A terrace overlooking the Staffordshire countryside and a red-brick barn converted into bedrooms next door make this dining pub feel like someone's particularly sorted country house. That someone rescued the village local when it closed, and the kitchen has since earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand turning out Modern British cooking that's hearty without being heavy. Prices stay honest, the portions don't.
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Rank 45. BALOCI
Indo Persian
A Georgian townhouse in Edgbaston, gilded and upholstered within an inch of its life, housing a restaurant that calls its cooking Indo-Persian, pulling threads from Afghanistan, Turkey, and Balochistan into a single menu. The tasting menu covers the most ground, but the Sultani lamb chops, melting and gently spiced, have a way of making the decision for you. It's a room that takes drama seriously, and so does the kitchen.
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A set-menu spot in Stirchley that earned its Michelin Bib Gourmand after a run of pop-ups that apparently had people talking. The chef pulls from South African roots and a broad sweep of Asian flavors, so tom yum and furikake might share a menu with something altogether harder to categorize. Two menu lengths mean you can calibrate the evening to your appetite, or your wallet. Neighborhood locals fill the room like they've been coming since the pop-up days.
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Rank 47. Tropea
Italian
Homemade pasta is the reason to come to this bright, neighbourhood Italian in Harborne, where the sharing plates and a well-priced Italian wine list fill the room with the kind of buzz that suggests regulars aren't going anywhere. The staff steer you through the menu with warmth that stops short of hovering. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks: this is straightforward, unshowy cooking that makes the whole thing look easy.
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Rank 48. Cuubo
Modern British
A Kickstarter-funded modern British bistro on Harborne High Street, small enough that the lively soundtrack fills every corner. The menu chases the seasons hard and keeps things unfussy, which turns out to be exactly the right instinct. Rhubarb frozen with peanut brittle and vanilla ice cream is the kind of dessert that reminds you restraint is its own technique. The room hums with the particular contentment of people who found somewhere good in their own neighborhood.
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Rank 49. Stones Restaurant
Modern British
Floor-to-ceiling windows face the River Derwent, and a rear terrace puts you right above the water. This small Modern British restaurant sits at the bottom of a steep flight of steps off Dale Road, the kind of entrance that weeds out the faint-hearted. The kitchen cooks classic combinations with confidence rather than fuss, and the room has that easy warmth you get when the staff seem to like being there as much as the regulars do.
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Rank 50. Chubby Castor
Modern British
The thatched roof and honey-stone exterior read as a classic English village pub, but the interior has gone a different direction, all smart lounge seating and glitzy finishes that ease into a linen-laid dining room. The cooking is Modern British rooted in time-honoured recipes, and the chef's experience shows in food that earns its place on proper tablecloths. A Michelin Selected restaurant tucked into the Cambridgeshire countryside, which is its own quiet kind of joke.
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American memorabilia lines the walls of this lively bar and casual dining spot on Saltergate, where line dancing nights sit comfortably alongside quiz nights and live sport on the same weekly calendar. The vibe is broadly Americana, the crowd is local and loyal, and the programming is restless enough that there's usually something on. It took the Admiral Taverns Pub of the Year at the 2025 Great British Pub Awards.
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Rank 52. The Royal Oak
Modern British
A Michelin-starred pub in a tiny Warwickshire village where game can be shot to order and the kitchen takes a farm-to-fork approach seriously enough that the menu shifts with what's available. Dishes run to three or four components each, which sounds spare until the food arrives. The room reads like an old-school country local, the kind that's been around forever, though the cooking belongs to somewhere more ambitious.
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Rank 53. Crown Wharf
British Pub
The brewery tap for Joules, Crown Wharf sits on the original site of one of their first breweries, built almost entirely from reclaimed materials by a two-man crew that kept going through the pandemic. It's a proper pub with a theatre and heritage centre attached, which is not a sentence you write every day. The Great British Pub Awards named it Overall Great British Pub of the Year in 2025, and Stone seems to agree, judging by the crowd.
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A stream runs alongside the terrace at this rural Worcestershire gastropub, which reopened after a full refurbishment and is now drawing people out from the city. The chef came up through Carters of Moseley, and the menu sits comfortably between proper pub food and something a bit more considered: battered haddock sits beside seabass with lobster bisque, and neither feels out of place. Menus turn with the seasons, the interior is cosy, and the desserts reportedly justify the drive.
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A thatched-roof country pub on the Great River Ouse, The Sun has the kind of postcard exterior that makes you wonder if the food can possibly keep up. It does. The kitchen runs its own farm, so "local ingredients" isn't just menu copywriting here. The bar hatch turns out goat curry and fritto misto alongside pints, while the seasonal tasting menu leans into beef shin, smoked trout, and whatever the farm is doing that week.
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A 14th-century Grade I-listed manor house is the unlikely anchor of this sprawling south Staffordshire pub, where walkers and diners turn up in roughly equal numbers. Inside, art deco lighting and a Blue Room wrapped in a 360-degree mural sit comfortably beside the open kitchen and pizza oven. Outside, there are booths and a bookable teepee. It took Marston's Pub of the Year at the 2025 Great British Pub Awards.
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Rank 57. The Bulls Head
Modern British
A full car park on a weekday night tells you something about a Derbyshire village pub. This one has built a loyal following by running tasting menus and an à la carte alongside the real ales, and by printing your name on the menu, which is either charming or slightly alarming depending on how you feel about being expected. The kitchen has genuine ambition, and the soufflés are the kind that make the table go quiet.
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Rank 58. The Woodsman
Modern British
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Rank 59. The Peacock at Rowsley
Modern British
Ivy-clad stone manor beside the River Derwent, with oak furniture carved by the legendary "Mousey" Thompson and antique oils hung alongside contemporary art. The kitchen runs the full range, from ploughman's lunches and afternoon tea to a proper dinner tasting menu with wine pairings, plus Sunday roasts that draw the Peak District crowd in from the cold. A Modern British restaurant with rooms, and the surrounding hills give you a reason to stay.
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Rank 61. Lovage
Modern British
Beamed ceilings and exposed brick in a converted stable block, right in the middle of a market town that Michelin knows mainly for its pudding. Lovage is a cosy modern British restaurant where the team talks you through locally sourced dishes with the kind of enthusiasm that stops just short of theatrical. Classic pairings like roasted beetroot and goat's cheese keep things grounded. They run a more casual coffee shop next door, if you'd rather not commit.
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Rank 62. Little Seeds
Modern British
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Rank 63. The Gallery Restaurant
Modern British
Oil paintings line the walls of this elegant hotel dining room on the Chatsworth Estate, and the beef on your plate likely grazed the same grounds you drove through to get here. The kitchen keeps things Modern British and unfussy, letting the estate produce carry the argument. The breads and desserts are quietly serious enough that you'll notice if you skip either.
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The Fischer family has been running this Edwardian manor on formal Derbyshire grounds for two generations now, which earns a certain ease. It's a country house restaurant with elegant dining rooms and the kind of service that irons its napkins. A Kitchen Bench seats you close enough to the kitchen to feel involved. Chatsworth Estate venison shows up during game season and tends to settle the question of what to order.
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Rank 65. Fuzzy Duck
Modern British
A pub in a Warwickshire village that was boarded up not so long ago, now running as a handsomely kept inn with rooms and a kitchen that moves between prawn cocktail and confit duck without breaking a sweat. The menu knows its British pub classics and leaves them mostly alone, then gets quietly playful when the mood takes it. The kind of place where the décor and the cooking are equally considered, and neither is trying too hard.
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A stone building on a quiet Staffordshire canal, The Flintlock is a proper sit-down restaurant with two dining rooms full of period features and the kind of unhurried charm that makes you linger. The chef is self-taught, which the cooking doesn't apologize for, leaning into a modern style that lets the room do some of the heavy lifting. A canal stroll before dinner is genuinely part of the rhythm here.
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Rank 67. Lunar
Modern New American
The plates here are genuine Wedgwood, which makes sense given the address: a sprawling modern dining room inside the World of Wedgwood visitor complex, built into what used to be the factory canteen. The kitchen leans on prime British ingredients, there's a tucked-away bar worth finding, and a chef's table with a window straight into the action. Josiah himself would probably approve, or at least recognize the crockery.
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Rank 68. The Howard Arms
Modern British
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Rank 69. Plough at Bolnhurst
Modern British
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Rank 70. The Bower House
Modern British
Copper-topped tables and comfy banquettes fill two knocked-together former shops in the middle of a small Warwickshire market town, and the result is a smart brasserie that somehow feels both lived-in and put-together. The menu leans into quality British produce without making a sermon of it. Rooms upstairs mean you can stay over, which, after a few rounds of whatever they're pouring, starts to seem like the obvious plan.
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Rank 71. Bastardo's Trattoria
Italian
Glass walls on three sides make the room feel like a fishbowl in the nicest possible way, which suits a place that calls itself an illegitimate trattoria. By day it runs as a coffee shop and bakery; come evening, the Italian side takes over with cicchetti, homemade pasta, and British seasonal produce folded quietly into the mix. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, and the friendly, unfussy service makes the whole thing feel like someone's very good dinner party.
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A stone former vicarage on the edge of Derbyshire, converted into a quietly ambitious fine dining room where the grounds alone are worth arriving early for. Two fixed-price menus anchor the experience, the longer of the two running through modern dishes built on serious sourcing, including game from estates you'd recognize by name. The setting has an easy grandeur that the cooking doesn't try to outrun.