Best Local Restaurant

The search for our 100 Best Local Restaurants is back for 2026 Now in its 16th year, and in partnership with Square, we're delighted to announce that the search to celebrate the best of local, independent dining is back.  Nominations open on Monday 9th March when we'll be calling on the British dining public to vote for their ...

As our search for Britain’s best local restaurants is set to return for a 16th year, we take a look at the common factors that unite the strongest contenders for the list.

Long Friday in Jesmond, Newcastle received the award for Best Local Restaurant in Yorkshire and the North East in this year’s list. The generous, down-to-earth cooking that defines this much-loved local restaurant inspired owner Anna Hedworth’s cookbook, Service. Here she shares one of her most loved recipes from it. On a Saturday afternoon we stuff chickens for a Sunday. We ...

Our winner of Best Local Restaurant in the North West this year is a homely little Italian trattoria, tucked away in an unlikely corner of a Prestwich industrial estate. Since opening in 2014, owner, baker and barista Nico Pasquali has been delivering faultlessly authentic and delicious flavours of Italy, to a famously uncompromising standard. Read on for his unbreakable rules ...

Co-founder of Best Local Restaurant Bench, Jack Wakelin began his hospitality journey in Sheffield’s renowned cocktail bar Public. It’s also where he met co-founder Ronnie Aronica, and fast forward to now the pair are propagating their South Yorkshire patch with neighbourhood venues: Pearl at Park Hill, Bench La Cave, and a new project on the way. One thing that has ...

Lupo in Prestwich, Manchester, was crowned our Best Local Restaurant in the North West thanks to its authentic, honest and downright delicious Roman cooking. Owner Nico Pasquali wears many hats in his business: when he’s not tending to his home-grown tomatoes at his allotment, he’s busy spreading the word about Italian coffee, or donning chef whites in the kitchen. These ...

A mainstay of Ida’s menu, this deeply delicious, slow-simmered ragù is made with chicken hearts and gizzards, hailing from Italy’s Marche region. To get a taste of London’s Best Local Restaurant here is the recipe from Ida at my table by Simonetta Wenkert, read the opening extract here. A note before you begin: the recipe calls for a mixture of minced beef and ...

An unlikely combination of novelist and restaurateur, Simonetta Wenkert turned her pen to recording the story of Ida, from its roots in Italy’s Marche region, to flinging open the doors in 2007 and the many highs and lows that followed over nearly two decades in business. It’s a beautifully told story and here, in the opening extract, is a ...

Restaurant lovers turned chef and restaurateur, Nicole Yeoh and James Harris have been firing up Winchester’s food scene since setting out their market stall in 2020. Five years down the line, they’ve been crowned The Good Food Guide’s Best Local Restaurant, in partnership with Square, with loyal fans travelling from as far as Bedfordshire for a flavour of what ...

Book your ticket now Sometimes a restaurant’s vibe is so clearly a true expression of its owners. So it is with Lucky Lychee, our Best Local Restaurant of 2025, where the utterly charming James Harris’s vigour sings, from welcome to farewell, while the exquisite Malaysian food prepared by his partner Nicole Yeoh is rated among the best in the country. From ...