The Best Places in the United Kingdom

Nigiri arrives one piece at a time, and the room stays quiet enough that you notice. This is an intimate omakase counter in Merton run by a husband-and-wife team, moving through small otsumami bites before the sushi becomes the whole point. Chutoro, otoro, hamachi, scallop, each one handled with a precision that makes the format feel less like a trend and more like an argument. Sake pairings are on offer if you need convincing.

A chef's table counter upstairs handles special occasions, while the dining room below keeps things rustic and neighbourhood-warm, looking out over Southborough Green. This is the kind of modern British cooking where technique stays out of sight and the flavours do the talking instead. Seasonal desserts lean into unusual pairings without making a fuss about it. Small, personal, and run by a couple who seem to actually enjoy what they do.

A heated terrace with a retractable roof in Mayfair is either genius or a confession about English weather, and either way it works. This is a polished Indian restaurant spread over two floors, where the basement seats you close enough to the tandoor counter to feel useful. The à la carte leans generous and shareable, running from chaat and small plates through curries and biryanis, with tasting menus available for the more committed table.

The tacos here do the talking, which is good because the décor has very little to add. TAQ is a casual Notting Hill cantina where the menu is short and focused: fish tacos, carnitas, tostadas, quesadillas, and churros to close. The cooking is more careful than the stripped-back room lets on, which is either a pleasant surprise or the whole point, depending on how cynical you arrived.

The dining room inside the Grand Jersey Hotel looks out over St Aubin's Bay, which earns its keep as a view. This is fine-dining territory, linen tablecloths and all, built around Jersey produce: blue lobster, wild turbot, local Angus beef. The cooking leans classical but lets itself have a little fun with it. Bespoke wine flights are available if you'd rather someone else do the thinking.

The room looks like a gallery dedicated to Ukrainian ceramics, which is either a bold move or the most accurate possible preview of the food to come. This Shoreditch restaurant serves generous, share-friendly plates rooted in Ukrainian cooking, with a long open kitchen and a covered terrace out back. The pickled cherry tomatoes with lemon yoghurt have become the dish regulars argue over last rights to. A welcome addition to Curtain Road.

A red-brick pub in the Constable Country villages that has been around forever and looks freshly loved, all wooden beams and proper fireplaces. The kitchen keeps things simple on purpose, turning out the kind of food, a bowl of pea and mint soup, boulangère potatoes crisped just so, that reminds you why unfussy cooking is hard to fake. Rooms upstairs if you want to stay and wander the Suffolk lanes.

Bright red chairs against crisp white linen sets the tone at this formal Modern British restaurant, where the room reads like a place that takes dinner seriously without making you feel guilty about enjoying it. The cooking is ambitious and colourful, and the wine list leans deep on reds. Paul Askew also runs guest chef evenings and live music nights, so the calendar is worth a look before you book.

A tasting menu inside a 17th-century country house manor, where the format is a little different: you pick the starter, main, and dessert, but the kitchen controls everything in between. That negotiated structure keeps the cooking intricate without leaving you entirely at the chef's mercy. The 60 acres outside are worth a slow walk before you sit down, which gives you something to do with the anticipation.

A country pub on the edge of Windsor Great Park, where the venison on the menu may well have come from the deer you passed on the way in. The kitchen turns local and seasonal ingredients into properly composed, attractively plated dishes, with a lighter bar menu if you just want a pint and something good. The cheese trolley, stacked with British options, arrives like a small event. Quirky, charming, and a little tucked away down Surrey's winding back roads.

A stone pub in Gorran Churchtown that has been keeping its pine furniture and whitewashed walls looking suspiciously well-maintained. The menu runs from Scotch eggs and sirloin with chips through to more ambitious plates, most of it sourced from the Roseland Peninsula nearby. The room is bigger than the facade suggests, with a proper bar, a dining area, and space upstairs, and the service is the kind that makes you feel like you're not being a bother.

A sandstone inn in a village so picturesque it feels slightly unfair to the rest of Somerset. Inside, old beams and exposed brick sit comfortably alongside more modern touches, and the kitchen's personality comes through in the kind of Modern British cooking that actually earns its rusticity. The team runs the bakery next door, and the sourdough that opens the meal makes the case early. Rooms are available for those who find leaving inconvenient.

The dartboard is still up, and that tells you everything about this Oxfordshire village pub. The team behind The Lamb Inn at Little Milton took over and resisted every temptation to sand away the pubby edges, keeping real ales and a community bar alongside a kitchen that actually cares where its fish comes from. The Michelin Guide has taken notice. Wear what you'd wear to the pub, because that's where you are.

Top hats serve as lampshades and tubas apparently live in the bathrooms, which tells you most of what you need to know about this old coaching inn in a very pretty East Sussex village. It's a proper pub with traditional British cooking, bold flavors, and sourdough pizza from the outdoor Smithy Kitchen when the weather cooperates. The wine list runs to jeroboams and imperials, which feels appropriately unhinged for a place this charming.

A Cotswold-stone pub that's been around forever, freshened up with enough taste that it doesn't feel like a renovation. The bar and dining room have log fires and flagged floors, and in summer the garden runs down to a small stream, which is either charming or unfair depending on how you feel about streams. Much of the produce comes from Daylesford Organic Farm next door, and the kitchen turns it into the kind of food you actually want in a pub.

A beautifully restored old inn sitting high in the Peak District, with an open kitchen on the upper floor and a rustic, cosy feel throughout. The menu is concise and seasonal, with enough international influence to keep things lively without losing the sense of place. Bedrooms in The Old Piggery sleep the walkers who take the nearby routes seriously, and the ground-floor rooms welcome dogs, which in Derbyshire is practically a civic requirement.

Tom Kitchin and his wife have taken an old coaching inn in golf country and turned it into their version of a great Scottish pub, with enough range that you can eat however seriously you like. The Broc Bar does haggis bonbons and fish pie; the Stables dining room asks a little more of you; and the sun-trap garden has its own menu when the East Lothian weather cooperates. Scottish ingredients run through all of it, from bar snacks to the more composed plates.

Oak panelling, a glass-covered courtyard, and the faint smell of whatever's coming off the wood-fired grill: The Botanical Rooms is a dining room inside The Newt's Georgian estate that manages to feel elegant without being stiff. The kitchen leans on the estate's own lamb and Dorset seafood, and the cooking is seasonal Modern British in the best unshowy sense. Service is polished but relaxed, which matches the room exactly.

The big bow window gives the room its name and most of its light, framing a walled garden that also supplies the kitchen. This is a Modern British restaurant tucked inside a Jacobean house beside York Minster, the kind of setting where a pre-dinner drink in the wood-panelled gallery feels entirely necessary. The menu follows the seasons closely, and the service has the easy warmth of people who seem to like their jobs.

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.

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.

Green walls, seersucker upholstery, and marble café tables set the tone in this brasserie inside Saltmoore's hotel and wellness resort on the North Yorkshire coast. The menu has a classic British backbone built around prime meats from the grill, with local touches that earn their place, Whitby crab in a clean, unfussy tartlet, heather honey from the North York Moors folded into the crème brûlée. The staff will happily talk you through it all.

The old Royal Oak pub now serves as little more than a grand doorway into this spacious, elegant dining room in Bray, where the team behind The Woodspeen has gone full Modern British splendour. A cocktail bar leads you through before the kitchen gets serious, leaning on prime UK produce, Dover sole, chateaubriand, and a wine list that means business. The terrace in summer is the kind of thing people plan trips around.

Regulars and their dogs claim the fireside at this Suffolk village pub, and no one seems to mind. Inside, the room blends exposed beams and contemporary touches without tipping into gastropub self-consciousness. The menu follows the produce, so it shifts, but steaks are a constant anchor. The garden is worth arriving early for in good weather, and the team manages warmth without effort.

Low beams, open fires, and parquet floors in a village pub that's been around forever, which is either a cliche or the genuine article depending on how the food lands. At The Bridge Arms it lands well: the kitchen runs a Josper grill through seasonal British ingredients, turning out refined pub classics like aged sirloin and house-cured bacon chop. The marmalade sponge cake has a reputation of its own. Come for a drink at the bar first; the room earns the extra few minutes.

A whitewashed roadside inn in the Welsh countryside where the walls are covered in motorsport memorabilia and classic car collectibles, which is not a combination you expect from a pub with rooms. The menu runs from grill cuts to a rotating pie and mash, the sort of thing that actually suits the setting. Connected to nearby Palé Hall, it has the same easy, unfussy service without the manor house formality.

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.

A butcher's counter runs along one side of this casual grill and burger spot from Tom Kerridge, and the cuts on display are the whole argument for visiting. The menu doesn't stray far from what the name promises: quality British meats, cooked to order. You can pop in for a burger or settle in for something slower, like Aberdeen Angus beef or Suffolk Texel lamb. The kind of place where no one needs to explain the concept twice.

A riverside pub-restaurant on the Wyre that has quietly grown into its own small empire, with a deli, farm shop, art gallery, and boutique rooms attached. The cooking is the unpretentious kind: French onion soup, tarte Tatin, comfort food done with conviction. There's also a menu section called "Premeditated Gluttony" for fruits de mer and lobster thermidor, which is either self-aware or honest, possibly both.

A Chelsea bun on the dessert menu, reworked rather than retired, tells you what kind of pub this is: neighbourhood-proud but not lazy about it. The Chalk Freehouse is a dining pub from the Tom Kerridge stable, with the boldly flavoured Modern British food to prove it. The room is elegant without advertising the fact, and the kitchen leans hard on prime British produce without turning the menu into a geography lesson.

Two pianos and a snooker table share the floor with open fires and wooden beams in this village pub beside a 13th-century church in Devon. The daily menu shifts with whatever's good, then does as little to it as possible, which is more or less the St. JOHN gospel. Communal long tables mean you'll be sharing elbow room with strangers by dessert, which seems appropriate given the building next door.

The exposed rafters of a converted Victorian schoolhouse make for a dining room that stops most people mid-sentence. This Modern British restaurant in Somerset leans into the setting without being precious about it, turning out carefully sourced British ingredients in dishes polished enough to match the surroundings. Service is attentive without the stiffness that sometimes shadows rooms this handsome.

The black-and-white timbered facade on Hitchin High Street has been some kind of inn since forever, and the front bar still feels like it. The Cock runs as both a pub and a restaurant, with a cooler, clubbier dining room tucked at the back. Modern British cooking, careful rather than showy, and a small converted barn out back for when the occasion demands a room of its own.

The entrance corridor does most of the work, with rosewood panelling and glass-fronted wine cabinets that signal exactly what kind of evening you're in for. Inside, a discreet dining room furnished by Mira Nakashima keeps the old-school Mayfair glamour intact without feeling musty. This is a classic grill room, built around serious cuts from Aberdeen Angus to Kobe beef, for people who have strong opinions about how a steak should be cooked.

A bright, glassy restaurant inside a converted Victorian farmhouse, where the tables look out onto a walled kitchen garden that the kitchen raids for seasonal produce. The cooking is modern British, unfussy by design, letting Norfolk crab and local game speak without much interference. It's the kind of place where restraint on the plate is actually the point, not an oversight.

Animals raised on site, produce pulled from the kitchen garden, and the Blackdown Hills rolling out beyond the window. This is a proper country inn, the kind where slow-roasted pork belly makes complete sense on the menu. The cooking leans local and seasonal with enough creativity to keep things interesting, and the converted outbuildings mean you can stay the night and pretend the commute home doesn't exist.

Four counter seats in a dark, moody room sounds like a math problem, but it's the whole point here. This intimate Modern British restaurant on a leafy Tunbridge Wells street builds its menu around local suppliers and a kitchen garden, letting the central ingredient do the talking. The counter spots are the ones to request: you're face to face with the chef and close enough to feel the heat.

An ivy-clad pub in the Dorset countryside where fire does most of the serious work. The restored interior keeps its old-school bones while leaning into something quirkier, and the menu follows the same logic: open-fire cooking that runs from oyster mushroom skewers to pork belly with charred hispi. The Basque cheesecake has clearly read the zeitgeist, but nobody seems to mind. Wines are fairly priced, and the service doesn't take itself too seriously.

Paintings of the sea cover the walls at this small seafood bistro opposite Pittenweem harbour, which doubles as a gallery for local artists, so you might leave with dinner and a framed print. The blackboard lists what came in that day, langoustines and hake among the regulars, all built around East Neuk produce cooked without fuss. It has the feel of a place the village keeps quietly to itself.

A cobbled side street off the Lymington quayside leads to a Georgian townhouse running multi-course tasting menus and a sharing option built around things like beef Chateaubriand for two. Being this close to the water, the day's catch tends to do the heavy lifting, and the kitchen has the technique to let good sourcing show. Unhurried and warmly run, it's the kind of place that suits a slow Saturday with nowhere else to be.

A restored Grade II-listed pub in a tucked-away Devon village, with open fires, exposed beams, and just enough contemporary polish to keep it from feeling like a museum piece. The kitchen runs on produce from the team's own farm, hogget included, and the menus shift with the seasons. There's a tasting menu if you want the full arc, or Sunday roast if you don't. Stylish rooms are scattered around the village for those who misjudge the wine.

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.

A converted milking barn on a working farm outside Edinburgh, where two brothers run a communal-table dinner spot built around produce grown just outside the door, in a no-dig kitchen garden they tend themselves. The cooking is seasonal and quietly ambitious, the kind of place where pressed hogget shoulder shows up alongside whatever the farm insists is ready. Refectory seating means you'll be making friends whether you planned to or not.

Japanese restaurant tucked inside a townhouse hotel on Sloane Street, where lacquered furniture and framed prints do a quiet job of setting the scene. The menu runs wider than you might expect, from nigiri à la carte to a full omakase at the counter, and the sake list is taken seriously. It is a calmer room than most of Belgravia's dining options, which is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your mood.

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.

A cosy, rustic seafood bistro tucked into the older streets of Topsham, close enough to the River Exe that the southwest coastline feels like a reasonable commute for the fish. The fixed-price menu leans into local catch with occasional global detours, so Cornish octopus might turn up alongside salsa verde while tiger prawn wontons arrive with crispy leeks. The room is cheerful and the Michelin Guide has taken notice.

A cream-washed former pub in the rural village of Lower Assendon, this is the kind of quietly confident restaurant where Indian spicing turns up inside a plate of modern British cooking and nobody bats an eye. The chef weaves his partner's heritage into the menu, so tamarind and chaat sit alongside local chicken and beef without any fuss. Warm, unhurried service completes the picture.

Brick and flint barns converted into a rustic restaurant on the North Norfolk coast, with a small wine shop attached in case dinner goes well. The menu shifts from a tight lunch card to a wider spread of small plates and sharing dishes in the evening, leaning on what's nearby: local oysters, Norfolk fish, lamb cooked low and slow. The sort of place where the cooking tastes like someone made it rather than engineered it.

A former railway hotel converted into something warmer and sharper by the team behind Ballintaggart Farm, with a small library lounge to pass through before you reach the restaurant. The cooking leans hard into Scottish seasonal ingredients, Isle of Mull crab and Perthshire wild mushrooms doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and portions are generous. The whisky list is taken seriously, which in this part of Perthshire feels less like a flex and more like good manners.

Floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, a roaring fire on the other, and somehow neither feels like an afterthought. This restored country pub and restaurant in a Wiltshire village runs a menu that covers the whole room, from steaks and burgers for the boots-still-muddy contingent to sea bass with Morteau sausage and girolles for whoever made a reservation. Ten bedrooms let you avoid the drive home entirely.

Low beams, flagstones, and a fireplace that looks like it hasn't moved in four centuries set the scene at this old coaching inn turned Modern British restaurant in Beaconsfield. The cooking runs refined but hearty, classic combinations handled with enough care that they feel like discoveries. The owners run the floor themselves, and the warmth is the unaffected kind that keeps regulars coming back rather than the scripted kind that doesn't.

The ornate ceiling is the one piece of Dorchester grandeur the room kept when everything else went bright and contemporary. It's a formal dining room inside the hotel, the kind where a suited team makes you feel looked after rather than watched. The menu leans British, with sharing centrepieces like beef Wellington doing the heavy lifting. The set lunch brings the price down to somewhere merely steep.

Wood panelling, fireplaces, and narrow staircases spread across four floors of a Marylebone townhouse: The Hart wears its pub credentials without apology. The team behind The Pelican runs this one on the same ethos, sourcing closely with British farmers and putting banoffee pie on a menu that seems to have won the room over fast. Order pork scratchings while you find your footing; the lamb chops tend to follow.

A self-taught chef who grew up in this Borders village, once worked here as a kid, spent time cooking in New York, and then came back to run the place. That's a lot of biography for one small, stylish dining room, but the food carries the weight. Locally sourced ingredients get an international nudge, prepared with quiet ambition and served by a team that seems to mean it. A modern restaurant worth finding in Gattonside, which is itself worth finding.

The wine list is sorted by how far each bottle sits from Conwy, as the jackdaw flies, which tells you everything about the spirit of this place. It's a tasting menu restaurant on the first floor of a former cinema, snug and intimate in the way only old buildings pull off. The kitchen leans into Welsh seasonality with a playful edge, and a "jackdaw," it turns out, is what locals call anyone born within the town walls.

Wood panelling, flagged floors, and open fires downstairs; proper British cooking upstairs. This Chester pub, a short walk from the city centre, pulls off the refurbishment trick without losing its pubby soul, which is harder than it sounds. The rotating ales keep the bar honest, while the dining rooms above turn out wholesome British plates with the occasional nod toward sunnier climates. The soda bread treacle tart is worth leaving room for.

A whitewashed pub in a tidy village on the edge of the Ayrshire hills, the Kirkmichael Arms runs a menu broad enough to include tom yum pork scratchings alongside the usual pubby comforts. Every dish comes paired with a wine or cocktail suggestion from a list that won't make you wince. Portions lean generous, the room feels properly cosy, and the staff seem to mean it when they make you welcome.

A North Pennine hamlet pub that takes its postcode seriously, sourcing everything within 50 miles, which in this particular corner of Cumbria means the kitchen leans hard on game. Roasted grouse and partridge ballotine are the kind of dishes that make sense here, surrounded by shooting country. The raspberry soufflé is operating well above pub-pudding expectations. Four rooms upstairs if you'd rather not drive back through the moors in the dark.

Low ceilings, exposed brick, and an open fire make The Lamb Inn feel like someone's extremely well-fed living room. It's a proper village pub in a stone hamlet outside Oxford, serving modern British food alongside the kind of classics that remind you why pub food has devoted followers. In summer the tiered garden does a lot of work. The kitchen leans on good ingredients and leaves them largely alone, which turns out to be a reasonable philosophy.

A thatched roof and whitewashed walls in a proper Oxfordshire village, and the inside delivers on the promise: low beams, a relaxed team, and a menu that runs from a pint with nibbles to something more considered. The kitchen cooks pub classics alongside more elaborate dishes, all grounded in carefully sourced ingredients. French onion soup is on the menu, and it tells you exactly what this place is about, hearty, confident cooking that doesn't need to announce itself.

Tucked into the first floor of a South Kensington gallery complex, this Mediterranean restaurant sits close enough to the V&A that you could practically sprint from a Raphael cartoon to your table. The kitchen pairs Med technique with British ingredients, resulting in dishes with a quiet, unfussy confidence. Museum crowds and locals who know the neighbourhood fill the room on any given afternoon.

The ale bread arrives with whipped marmite butter, and after that the tone is pretty much set: unfussy, confident Welsh cooking inside Tenby Golf Club's spacious clubhouse restaurant. The chef leans hard on local produce without making a fuss about it, and the beach next door gives you a solid excuse to linger. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants.

A compact, Nordic-feeling restaurant near the edge of Leith, with an open kitchen running the length of one wall and counter seats for anyone who wants to watch the work up close. The tasting menu moves through Scottish ingredients, scallops among the regulars, shifting from delicate to punchy without losing its footing. The room is pared back enough that you notice the warmth of the service, which is the point.

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.

The lane to South Pool is narrow enough to make you question your choices, but the pub at the end of it sits among thatched cottages like it grew there. The short menu leans on lamb and beef from the owners' farm a few miles away and crab from Salcombe down the road, keeping things honest rather than clever. Two nearby cottages mean you can skip the white-knuckle drive back until morning.

The crispy layered potatoes with truffle salt and parmesan have their own quiet reputation at this hotel dining room inside the Feathers, a short walk from Blenheim Palace. The room wears its 17th-century bones lightly, old beams sitting alongside pale pastels without making a fuss about either. Modern British cooking, a menu that moves by season, and a front-of-house team that reads the table without hovering over it.

The old banking counter now does duty as the bar, which sets the tone for this intimate tasting menu restaurant in a Norfolk village. A husband-and-wife team runs it, one in the kitchen and one on the floor, with produce pulled from their own allotment. The menu comes in shorter and longer forms, and the wine pairings are described with the kind of enthusiasm that makes you feel rude saying no.

A former butcher's shop in the Cotswolds that never quite lost its bones, now a relaxed seafood-forward restaurant where the charcoal grill does serious work alongside Cornish scallops and Dover sole. The family has run the room for decades, and it shows: the front of house is warm without being cloying, the menu moves between land and sea without losing focus, and Stow-on-the-Wold is a better town for having it.

A former coastguard's cottage in one of Cornwall's prettiest fishing villages, with a sub-tropical garden and sea views toward St Clement's Isle that make lingering over the wine list feel practically mandatory. The menu runs as a laid-back brasserie with a Mediterranean lean, the kind of place where the room is unhurried and nobody's rushing you out. Bedrooms upstairs, most with sea views, if you'd rather not drive back along those lanes.

The restaurant sits inside a glass orangery attached to the old manse for Blair Castle, with ten acres of grounds and a walled garden doing their best to upstage dinner. It's a relaxed country dining room despite all that grandeur, serving modern Scottish cooking built around produce like Skye langoustine and Perthshire mallard, kept clean and uncluttered on the plate. Chatty service keeps things from going stiff, and rooms are available for anyone who's come too far to drive home.

A former drover's inn perched above a valley in the North York Moors, The Owl is a rural pub that leans into its setting without making a fuss about it. The kitchen runs on unfussy British comfort, the kind where devilled kidneys and toad in the hole appear without irony and disappear quickly. Rooms are available if the moors convince you to stay longer, which they tend to do.

A converted barn on the Thyme estate in the Cotswolds, surrounded by the kind of lavender-edged gardens that make you feel vaguely French. The kitchen pulls heavily from its own gardens and farm, so the Modern British menu shifts with the season rather than with the season's trend. The large communal table in front of the open kitchen is the move if you've come with a group and want to feel like you're eating on a film set.