Best Local Restaurant

In partnership with Square, Good Food Guide is calling on food lovers across the country to champion the neighbourhood restaurants that truly deserve their moment in the spotlight. Every community has that one go-to place. The restaurant where the welcome is as good as the food. Where the staff remember your name (and often your order!), where the atmosphere feels ...

We've been reading through thousands of your nominations on the hunt for Britain’s Best Local Restaurants 2026 in partnership with Square. Here’s a sneak peek at the restaurants currently leading the charge, but with nominations still open until 20 April, the competition is far from over. Nominate your favourite local restaurant here. Tonka Hastings, East Sussex Soi 1268 Stirchley, ...

Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants in partnership with Square is back for 2026 and we need your help to find the very best local, independent restaurants across the country. A Best Local Restaurant is likely to be a casual kind of place, with excellent cooking using local suppliers and a brilliantly warm welcome for whoever walks through the door. It’s the kind ...

As the engines fire up for our 16th annual search for Britain’s greatest local restaurants, we offer some guidance on what makes a worthy winner. Fresh, seasonally driven cooking is essential but what are gives our worthy winners the X-factor? Here are six signs to look out for.

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 ...

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 ...