Prestigious publication The Good Food Guide, unveiled its award winning restaurants on 30 January in their inaugural ceremony at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London.
The Good Food Guide Awards, in partnership with Resy, was a celebration of the wide diversity of the country’s restaurants culminating in The Sportsman in Kent receiving the Restaurant of the Year award and becoming only the fourth restaurant in Britain to be rated World Class by the Guide. Mountain in London won Best New Restaurant, and Helmsley and The Howardian Hills in North Yorkshire was named Most Exciting Food Destination.
Three restaurants maintained the Guide’s elusive ‘World Class’ rating: L’Enclume in Cumbria, Ynyshir in Mid-Wales, and Moor Hall in Lancashire with a further six new restaurants added to the ranks of ‘Exceptional’, including Mýse in North Yorkshire, The Cedar Tree in North Cumbria, and CORE by Clare Smyth in London’s Notting Hill.
Editor Elizabeth Carter said of awards: “It’s a new era for The Good Food Guide with a new look and a revamped rating system, but the Guide’s deep-rooted values remain exactly the same. There’s always been a lot of excitement surrounding our awards, and this year we’ve overhauled them to better reflect the fast-paced changes in Britain’s dining out scene. I’m incredibly proud of the entire awards list as every restaurant on it, not just the winners, sets the standard by which all others should be measured.”
In place of the usual ranked list, The Good Food Guide has moved to recognising Britain’s top restaurants by their rating as Exceptional and World Class, with individual awards (including Best Front Row Seat and Best New Restaurant) marking out the leaders in their field. Every restaurant is comprehensively inspected by co-editors Elizabeth Carter and Chloë Hamilton and their team of 30 anonymous inspectors, with Good Food Guide readers sending tip offs when promising cooking and hospitality emerges from the most remote or unlikely places.
This year’s Restaurant of the Year was awarded to The Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent, which also moved into the highly selective group of World Class-rated restaurants. The Guide highlighted its assured originality and impressive longevity: not only has it been in business for 25 years, head chef Dan Flavell has been working alongside Stephen Harris for the past 23 of them. “It’s still hard to book, it’s astoundingly good value, and it’s as relevant today as when it was the new hot ticket,” said Elizabeth Carter. “This restaurant is rock solid. They’ve never been out of touch with the local food movement. They’re in touch with their customers. They’ve got a take-us-or-leave-us attitude, which is not irreverent, it’s just ‘this is what we do’.”
The Good Food Guide prides itself on in-depth inspections and detailed, longform reviews. In an age of recycled content, it’s an invaluable and trusted resource to help readers seek out the perfect restaurant for their taste and budget. With the current economic climate, the need for confidence in dining choices has never been greater and with over 70 years of experience, The Good Food Guide has invested heavily in new ways to access their content – via an app, website and social media – without compromising the quality of output.
The Good Food Guide was acquired in 2021 by Knife & Fork Media, owners of hospitality perks platform CODE, who have made a series of changes to the respected publication. Adam Hyman, founder of Knife & Fork said, “It’s no secret that the hospitality industry has been through a torrid time over the past few years with the impacts of Brexit and the pandemic. Yet our awards not only prove the resilience of hospitality as an industry, but show just how much dining out across Britain has evolved for the better in the past 70 years. The range and diversity of Britain’s restaurants has never been greater and so The Good Food Guide is more valuable than ever in providing trusted, authoritative recommendations.”
The event at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane was supported by Lord Lloyd Webber who, via a video appearance from the Caribbean, paid tribute to the founder of the Guide, Raymond Postgate, joking that he initially intended to call it ‘The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food’. Lord Lloyd Webber referenced his personal Good Food Guide collection, being one of the few owners of every single edition published since 1951 (69 in total). He also mentioned that the Guide has returned better than ever, enjoying a new accessibility of information and inspiration.
The full list of World Class and Exceptional restaurants, along with the individual award winner is as follows:
World Class
L’Enclume, Cumbria
Moor Hall, Lancashire
The Sportsman, Kent – NEW
Ynyshir, Mid Wales
New Exceptional-rated restaurants for 2024:
Behind, London
CORE by Clare Smyth, London
Mýse, North Yorkshire
The Cedar Tree at Farlam Hall, Cumbria
The Ritz, London
The Sea, The Sea Chef’s Table, London
Exceptional
Aulis London, London
Annwn, Mid-Wales
Cail Bruich, Glasgow
Claude Bosi at Bibendum, London
Da Terra, London
Edinbane Lodge, Isle of Skye
Grace & Savour, West Midlands
Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, London
Hide and Fox, Kent
Hjem, Northumberland
Harborne Kitchen, Birmingham
Home at Penarth, Wales
La Dame de Pic, London
Lake Road Kitchen, Cumbria
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Oxfordshire
Meadowsweet, Norfolk
Old Stamp House, Cumbria
Osip, Somerset
Outlaw’s New Road, Cornwall
Pine, Northumbria
Pollen Street Social, London
Restaurant 22, Cambridge
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London
Solstice by Kenny Atkinson, Newcastle
Sosban & The Old Butcher’s, Isle of Anglesey
Spring, London
The Glenturret Lalique Restaurant, Scotland
The White Swan, Lancashire
Woven by Adam Smith, Berkshire
BEST FRONT ROW SEAT
WINNER – The Sea, The Sea Chef’s Table, London
Behind, London
Aulis London, London
Barrafina, Dean Street, London
Harrods Dining Hall, London
DRINKS LIST OF THE YEAR
WINNER – Furna, Brighton
Noble Rot (all locations), London
Allium at Askham Hall, Cumbria
The Kitchin, Edinburgh
BEST FARM TO TABLE RESTAURANT
WINNER – Our Farm, Cumbria
Crocadon, CornwallCoombeshead, Cornwall
Osip, Somerset
The Goods Shed, Kent
The Small Holding, Kent
MOST EXCITING FOOD DESTINATION
Helmsley & the Howardian Hills, North Yorkshire
CHEF TO WATCH
WINNER – James Carn, Lark, Suffolk
Max Coen, Dorian, London
Kasia Piatkowska, Tropea, Birmingham
Rob Sachdev, Upstairs at Landrace, Bath
Wesley Smalley, Seasonality, Maidenhead
Jamie Smart, Cadet, London
BEST NEW RESTAURANT
WINNER – Mountain, London
Myse, North Yorkshire
Lark, Suffolk
Dorian, London
Higher Ground, Manchester
The Abbey Inn, North Yorkshire
Noble Rot Mayfair, London
RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR
WINNER – The Sportsman, Kent
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Oxfordshire
Ynyshir, Mid-Wales
L’Enclume, Cumbria
Pine, Northumberland
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