The top entries and award winners from the 2016 Good Food Guide have been revealed ahead of the launch of its 65th anniversary issue. The Good Food Guide, owned by Waitrose, is a guide to the very best restaurants and eateries across Britain.
And it’s not just fine dining that is being recognised. Whilst one leading restaurant has secured a hat trick of consecutive years in the top spot, a caravan park café in Wales has also been included in the guide for its high quality menu.
The guide celebrates its 65th anniversary this year, with the very first Good Food Guide published in 1951. It was a hardback of 224 pages, cost five shillings and listed ‘600 places throughout Britain where you can rely on a good meal at a reasonable price’. The guide is still compiled with reliance on reader feedback of eateries up and down the country together with anonymous inspections by a team of experts.
Elizabeth Carter, Waitrose Good Food Guide Editorcomments:
“Back in 1949, when Raymond Postgate wrote a heartfelt piece calling for a ‘campaign against cruelty to food’, a typical restaurant meal included soup from a tin, soggy steak from Argentina, synthetic cream and tinned Empire fruit. Postgate’s article inspired an army of like-minded people to report on places where the food was decent and The Good Food Guide was created. Sixty-five years of championing the best food around Britain – now that’s what I call a brilliant achievement.”
L’Enclume top for third year
Taking the top spot of ‘number one restaurant’, for the third year running, is L’Enclume, which also secured four years of ‘perfect ten scores’. L’Enclume, located in the historic village of Cartmel in Cumbria, is run by chef Simon Rogan. The guide entry calls it the “the UK’s greatest restaurant” and “an unassuming location for an undoubted pinnacle of the new British cooking.” It was awarded the very best score possible because “many of the dishes have become long-running masterpieces” with the most noteworthy the Cartmel Valley venison tartare and a “really special” apple tart with gingerbread ice cream. Many dishes at L’Enclume are made with ingredients sourced from the establishment’s own farmland.
Speaking about his top entry in the Guide, Chef Simon Rogan said:
“There are a lot of amazing restaurants around and for L’Enclume to be awarded #1 in the Good Food Guide for the 3rd year running is very special. And us having three restaurants in the top 17 is a massive achievement from the team.”
The Marram Grass Café on White Lodge Caravan Park
It was a Good Food Guide inspector who suggested that a café in an unexpected location was worth further investigation. The Marram Grass Café, a new entry into the 2016 guide, is run by twenty-something brothers, Liam and Ellis Barrie, on their parents’ White Lodge Caravan Park in Newborough on the Isle of Anglesey. The café is housed in an old breeze block potting shed with a tin roof but offers a menu focussed on local ingredients sourced directly from farmers and fishermen in Anglesey.
Speaking about The Marram Grass Café, Elizabeth Carter, Waitrose Good Food Guide Editor said, “When one of the guide’s longest serving inspectors tipped us off about a restaurant in a shed on a campsite, our curiosity was piqued. And what an extraordinary find Marram Grass Café turned out to be. The low building with its corrugated iron roof may channel scout hut and air raid shelter in equal measure, but the interior charms and the cooking shows ambition and skill. It’s a simple recipe for success that not many manage to get so right.”
Joint owner of The Marram Grass Cafe, Liam Barrie, 27, said, “When we first started out in 2009, we’d taken over what had been a greasy spoon with only four tables. It was just my chef brother Ellis and I with a couple of Saturday staff but now we have 30 people on our books and 40 covers. We changed the existing menu from one that relied on frozen food to ours which sources from as many local producers as possible. We are really proud of that. We like staying creative and are always experimenting with our dishes made with ingredients such as Menai mussels and line caught Anglesey sea bass.”
The Edotors’ Awards
Waitrose has also announced the Editors’ Awards from The 2016 Good Food Guide. These awards recognise restaurants and chefs who have shown excellence in their field.
This year, Chef of the Year has been awarded to Robin Gill from The Dairy and The Manor, Clapham, London. Restaurant of the Year has been named as Ox in Belfast and Best New Restaurant Entry is Lake Road Kitchen in Ambleside, Cumbria.
The guide also highlights Britain’s best pubs. Along with highlighting the top 50 public houses, the editors of the guide have awarded Best New Pub Entry to The Lickfold Inn, Lickfold, West Sussex.
The Waitrose Good Food Guide 2016 Editors’ Awards
Chef of the Year
Robin Gill – The Dairy and The Manor, Clapham, London
Restaurant of the Year
Ox, Belfast
Best New Restaurant Entry
Lake Road Kitchen – Ambleside, Cumbria
Best New Pub Entry
The Lickfold Inn – Lickfold, West Sussex
Local Gem of the Year
Flour & Ash – Bristol
Wine List of the Year
Tyddyn Llan – Llandrillo, Wales
Readers’ Restaurant of the Year
The Miller of Mansfield – Goring, Oxfordshire
Top 50 Restaurants
The Good Food Guide’s annual Top 50 restaurant ranking is highly regarded by chefs and restaurant-goers alike, with particular attention paid to those chefs and restaurants who make it into the Top 10. The Top 50 recognises the very best talent in the country; a place on the list represents a huge achievement, with each position earned by its score in The Good Food Guide, editor appraisal and strength of reader feedback. A top score of 10 means “Just perfect dishes, showing faultless technique at every service; extremely rare, and the highest accolade the Guide can give.” New in the top 10 this year are Fraiche and Midsummer House and new in the Top 50 are Adams, Lake Road Kitchen, The Dairy, Llangoed Hall and Sketch.
- L’Enclume, Cumbria (10)
- Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London (10)
- Pollen Street Social, London (9)
- Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Cornwall (9)
- Hibiscus, London (9)
- Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottinghamshire (9)
- Midsummer House, Cambridgeshire (8) (new in top 10 this year)
- The Ledbury, London (8)
- Fraiche, Merseyside (8) (new in top 10 this year)
- Le Champignon Sauvage, Glos (8)
- The Square, London (8)
- Fera at Claridges, London (8)
- Le Gavroche, London (8)
- Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles, Tayside (8)
- Marcus, London (8)
- Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Oxfordshire (8)
- The French, Manchester (8)
- André Garrett at Cliveden, Berkshire (8)
- Whatley Manor, The Dining Room, Wiltshire (8)
- The Kitchin, Edinburgh (7)
- Bohemia, Jersey (7)
- The Waterside Inn, Berkshire (7)
- Artichoke, Buckinghamshire (7)
- Restaurant James Sommerin, Glamorgan (7)
- Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London (7)
- Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London (7)
- Paul Ainsworth at No. 6, Cornwall (7)
- Casamia, Bristol (7)
- Adam’s, Birmingham (7) (new in top 50 this year)
- Restaurant Martin Wishart, Edinburgh (7)
- Pied à Terre, London (7)
- Restaurant Story, London (7)
- Murano, London (7)
- Ynyshir Hall, Powys (7)
- Sketch, London (7) (new in top 50 this year)
- Llangoed Hall, Powys (7) (new in top 50 this year)
- Hedone, London (7)
- Hambleton Hall, Rutland (7)
- The Peat Inn, Fife (7)
- Gidleigh Park, Devon (7)
- Fischer’s Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (7)
- Freemasons at Wiswell, Lancashire (7)
- The Hand & Flowers, Buckinghamshire (6)
- Yorke Arms, Ramsgill, Yorkshire (6)
- The Dairy, London (6) (new in top 50 this year)
- OX, Belfast (6)
- The Raby Hunt, Durham (6)
- Lake Road Kitchen, Cumbria (6) (new in top 50 this year)
- The Sportsman, Kent (6)
- Northcote, Lancashire (6)
Top 50 Pubs
The list below is unique in the UK: every pub has earned its place through its score in The Good Food Guide, inspector reports and strong reader feedback. There are some strong new entries this year including The Woodspeen, The Lickfold Inn (both new to Top 10) and The Pony and Trap which has roared up the list to No 5 (it was No 25 last year).
- Freemasons at Wiswell, Lancashire
- The Hand & Flowers, Buckinghamshire
- The Sportsman, Kent
- Red Lion, East Chisenbury, Wiltshire
- The Pony & Trap, Chew Magna, Somerset
- The Lickfold Inn, Sussex
- The Woodspeen, Berkshire
- The Ancrum Cross Keys, Borders, Scotland
- The Pipe and Glass Inn, Yorkshire
- The Royal Oak, Paley Street, Berkshire
- The Coach, Marlow, Buckinghamshire
- The Butcher’s Arms, Eldersfield, Glos
- The Treby Arms, Devon
- The Cross at Kenilworth, Warwickshire
- The White Oak, Cookham, Berkshire
- The Hardwick, Abergavenny
- The Star Inn, Harome, Yorkshire
- The Stagg Inn, Titley, Herefordshire
- The Harwood Arms, Fulham, London
- The Plough, Bolnhurst, Bedfordshire
- The Plough Inn, Longparish, Hampshire
- The Hinds Head, Berkshire
- The Nut Tree Inn, Oxfordshire
- The Masons Arms, Knowstone, Devon
- The Broad Chare, Tyne & Wear
- The Miller of Mansfield, Oxfordshire
- The Wellington Arms, Baughurst, Hampshire
- The Falcon Inn, Withernwick, Yorkshire
- The Lamb Inn, Crawley, Oxfordshire
- The Springer Spaniel, Cornwall
- The Star Inn, Sparsholt, Oxfordshire
- The Felin Fach Griffin, Powys
- The Duke of Cumberland Arms, West Sussex
- The Purefoy Arms, Hampshire
- The Duke of York Inn, Grindleton, Lancashire
- The Kinmel Arms, Conwy
- The Richmond Arms, West Ashling, West Sussex
- The Five Alls, Oxfordshire
- The New Inn, Great Limber, Lincolnshire
- The General Tarleton, Yorkshire
- The White Hart, Lydgate, Greater Manchester
- The Sun Inn, Dedham, Essex
- The Bay Horse, Hurworth-on-Tees, Durham
- The Kingham Plough, Oxfordshire
- The Square and Compasses, Essex
- The Star at Sancton, Yorkshire
- Bunch of Grapes, Glamorgan
- Beckford Arms, Wiltshire
- Wheatsheaf Inn, Northleach, Gloucestershire
- The Camberwell Arms, London