No alcohol doesn't mean no fun: 8 of the best restaurants to enjoy soft drinks
Published 11 April 2025

Launched in 2018, the Manchester outpost of Dishoom is so firmly embedded in the Spinningfields district that it's hard to imagine how the area ever did without it. Inspired by the lively bustle of old Irani Bombay, it's just the place for mixing, matching and sharing hearty Indian café cooking. Although some of the turmeric-coloured booth seating is held back for reservations, it's mostly a come-as-you-are operation, starting with breakfasts for bodybuilders – akuri is three spiced and loosely scrambled eggs with grilled tomato and fat homemade pau buns.

The all-day menu offers up everything from green chilli cheese toast with garlic to okra fries and filo lamb samosas for ravenous snackers, as well as a hot line in biryanis such as nalli nihari – a 'well-flavoured' whole lamb shank with caramelised onions and rice under a pastry blanket, served with chicken liver raita. The masala prawns are slightly charred at the edges, as is only proper, while switched-on salads and vegan dishes up the ante – although the unusual jackfruit curry is something of an acquired taste.

To finish, save space for the poppyseed mawa cake with yuzu ice cream and jaggery syrup. Drinking is all part of the fun, even if you stick to the teetotal cocktails. If you don't, get slapped around the tonsils with a Padmini Negroni – built around pears soaked overnight in Campari, vermouth, citrus gin and cocoa.

Originally born out of a few stacked shipping containers in formerly industrial Kelham Island, this modern eatery has gone from strength to strength at its new location. Luke and Stacey Sherwood-French's Jöro is now housed in a 19th-century paper mill amid the rolling peaks of Oughtibridge Valley, complete with seven apartment rooms as well as a terrace coffee shop and bar. As the umlaut might suggest, Jöro’s sensibilities are generally Nordic in their embrace of rawness, fermentation, and simplicity of preparation; roughly translated, Jöro means 'earth', though the ingredients and flavours take more of a steer from Asian cooking.

This clear ideology helps bring cohesion to a menu with references as diverse as Northern nostalgia (albeit with Swiss cheese-filled viennoiserie served with compressed pineapple), a touch of Sicilian rustic charm, obscure Japanese ferments, savoury French toast, and the comfort of a fresh-baked cookie finale, all within the space of an excellent-value, 90-minute 'Ö.5' lunch tasting menu (just one of three tasters on offer). Chalkstream trout – salted for 10 days and served with an Amalfi lemon remix of the Japanese yuzu ferment kosho –  has always been a Jöro highlight, but it’s a pleasure to see celeriac get its moment in the sun as well (here glazed in a ginger teriyaki and cooked over coals, served on celeriac espuma and under yet more, crispy, celeriac). 

Wines are accessibly priced and helpfully communicated (a pairing for our lunch menu was a bargain at £32), and there’s an impressively considered menu of non-alcoholic homemade sodas and juices – enough to form a pairing flight of their own.

Kol is the word for ‘cabbage’ in Mexican Spanish, and the idea of taking an under-appreciated vegetable and spinning it into haute cuisine might serve as a metaphor for how Santiago Lastra has brought 9,000 years of Mexican culinary heritage bang up-to-date for British diners more used to tacos and tortillas. The expat chef had already done a tour of duty of the world’s most lauded kitchens before overseeing the Noma Mexico pop-up in 2017, and (as at Noma) Kol's menu only features local or native ingredients.

Lastra's signature dish – and the standout of the 10-course menu – is a fat Scottish langoustine tail daubed with smoked chilli, its sweetness cut with a coriander-like garland of sea arrowgrass. Further garnishing comes at the table, courtesy of squeezing out the juices in the creature’s head, before the whole delectable parcel is wrapped up in a tortilla. It’s the sort of bite-size morsel one wishes came in a serving of 10. Despite the theatrical saucing, it is also a fairly simple (if labour-intensive) assembly, as is another hugely enjoyable course involving confit pork cheek with black beans, woodruff and apple, plus crispy pig’s skin to sprinkle on top of more tortillas (kept warm in a bespoke pouch). Although there’s no denying the creativity it takes to pair a corn and yellow pepper custard with caviar and bisect the dish with tagete flowers (one of the most visually arresting plates we’ve eaten in a long time), there are perhaps not enough flavour fireworks to sustain 10 courses.

The room looks just as good as the cooking, with an open kitchen in the middle staffed by young chefs clad in the same earthy-toned colours as their surroundings, while word-perfect waiting staff are as committed to the Kol project as Lastra himself. Overall, however, we felt this was a tasting menu shaped to fit the sort of international ‘best restaurant’ lists that Noma once topped, with Mexican flavours grafted on to an essentially European structure – from the first thimbleful of kombucha and mezcal broth to a pre-dessert sorbet of butternut squash and chilli. Still, Lastra is to be commended for proving that high-end Mexican cuisine works as well in London as it does in Mexico City.

Just be warned that reservations go live two months ahead and disappear almost immediately; the basement Mezcaleria bar may be an easier (and cheaper) way in, with Mexican spirits to wash down small plates every bit as intricate as the dishes served upstairs.

Simon Rogan was awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours List at the end of 2023, which is some measure of the influence he has had on contemporary British dining. The nerve centre of the whole operation is still here, in a stone-built former smithy on a Cartmel road-bend, not far from its sibling Rogan & Co. The ambience has lost none of its rusticity, from the roughcast whitewashed walls and raftered ceilings to the anvil after which the place is named. The light, airy conservatory makes a fine spot for lunch. Smartly clad staff oversee a welcoming – and supremely professional – approach to hospitality, and the food does the rest. The kitchen mobilises a battalion of unexpected ingredients in surprising – even stunning – combinations, with textural notes to the fore as well as a clear focus on sustainability and regionalism. Among the appetisers is a fritter of Duroc pork and smoked eel on lovage emulsion with sweetcorn purée, an unimaginably delicious composition of flavours. There is also a pudding of Berkswell cheese coated in caramelised birch sap, tapped from a tree just a couple of miles away. A succession of plated dishes might include tiny pink fir potatoes cooked in chicken fat with pickled walnuts and an oil of burnt onion ash, while one of L'Enclume's signatures is the seaweed custard in beef broth and bone marrow, garnished with a house blend of caviar and Maldon oyster. Various vegetable-based specialties are always part of the menu, their seasonal freshness offset with powerful herbs and seasonings. As for animal protein, a pairing of John Dory and cuttlefish in pork fat with shrimp sauce, spinach and verbena might precede an outstanding dish of dry-aged Middle White pork in mead sauce with black garlic purée and pickled allium seeds, plus a pork-fat crumpet sitting on a hot stone to keep it warm. Textures go haywire in a serving of frozen Tunworth cheese topped with puffed buckwheat, lemon thyme crystals and gel, on a compôte of Champagne rhubarb. After strawberries and sweet cicely cream served in a ceramic pouch, followed by a miso-caramel mousse with apple (another L’Enclume signature), we concluded with an array of superlative petits fours – including a cornet of peach-stone ice cream with elderflower and white-chocolate ganache, and a tiny caramelised pear tart with a spot of herb oil. Wines by the glass are presented on an iPad, which you may want to keep by you as the menu progresses, but it's best to let the wine flights themselves take wing on a cosmopolitan journey around the globe.

It’s all about the food at Sollip – a ‘serious and grown-up dining experience’ imagined by the husband-and-wife team of Woongchul Park and Bomee Ki. The restaurant itself is sightly spartan and emphatically serene with lots of authentic detailing (Korean ceramics, woodwork, exquisite floral arrangements) – the perfect backdrop to the owners’ creative vision, which fuses Korean techniques and ingredients (including the rare edible marine algae known as gamtae) with ideas from contemporary British and European cuisine.  

First-timers should get their initiation from the four-course lunch menu, which includes standout offerings such as unbelievably moreish so-tap (a cast-iron pot of rice topped with Jerusalem artichoke jangajji) quickly followed by thin slices of BBQ wagyu beef and a side order of slow-cooked meat, plus perfect accompaniments including baechu (napa cabbage) purée and beautifully seasoned spinach.

Trade-up to the full eight-dish dinner menu and you can expect a plethora of complex and commanding flavours ranging from the signature daikon tarte tatin embellished with kimchi, toasted barley, roasted potato and burnt hay to nurungji (Korean scorched rice) with celeriac and mung bean jelly. Other ideas such as monkfish with red cabbage, onion and passion fruit belie their European lineage, likewise a sweet course of black pain perdu with ice cream, burnt vanilla and pecan. Service is thoughtful and attentive throughout.

The wine list, supplied by Keeling Andrew & Co (of Noble Rot), is stuffed with dream bottles at big-ticket prices, with precious little below £100. However, it's also worth indulging in the delights of the exceptional tea service, with its choice of heady infusions involving the likes of buckwheat, plum blossom, lotus leaf and cacao husk. Alternatively, try the chestnut and honey latte, coffee kombucha or a shot of pine liqueur (Sollip is Korean for pine needle).

Are you looking to sample great cooking combined with the sociability of a supper club? Then, make a beeline for Gabriel Waterhouse's classy restaurant tucked down a graffiti-strewn side street in Bethnal Green. Waterhouse honed his craft at Galvin La Chapelle in the City but has reimagined the notion of fine dining, moving from stiff formality to what might be called a ‘chill experience’. 

Arrive at 1pm for lunch or 7pm for dinner, and remember that it pays to be sociable – you may end up sharing a communal table in the modern high-ceilinged room with its huge windows, wooden furniture, concrete walls, exposed ventilation and 'borderless' kitchen. The vibe is totally relaxed, with well-informed staff consciously cultivating a sense of fun and informality. 

An umami-rich celeriac and kohlrabi broth infused with koji oil, accompanied by a chestnut and cep parfait sandwiched between wafers of rye bread opened our 11-course 'discovery' menu, emphasising the fact that a lot of forethought and work has gone into each dish. The same care and attention was applied to a serving of cured lobster claw and tail with carrot escabèche, finished off with Madeira and spices for extra warmth. Elsewhere, the textures and garlicky flavour of allium and Roscoff onion worked well with a soft sunflower and miso paste, three-cornered leeks and toasted nigella seeds, 

We also recommend opting for the well-curated drinks pairings: the crispy notes of a glass of white Rioja (Solar de Randez 2023) perfectly complemented a dish of oysters topped with green-chilli yoghurt, pickled cucumber and a cold apple, cucumber and sorrel granita. Or how about the fruity notes of a 1909 Wilding Cider (from the 2022 vintage) to accompany a roasted Orkney scallop with a koji emulsion and celeriac braised in seaweed stock, all perked up with a drop of lovage oil? To close the show, freshly baked canelé with a dollop of orange marmalade and a dash of peaty Laphroaig whisky was a terrific way to end. 

Built as a props warehouse in the 1800s before becoming a lumber store, the Radford family's aptly named Timberyard feels perfectly attuned to the space it occupies – monumental in scale but retaining intimacy and humility. Rough white walls, monastic timber tables, ecclesiastical candles and hemp linen may infer a certain cool asceticism – accentuated by the contemporary classical soundtrack – but there are certainly no metaphorical hair shirts where the food is concerned. Rusticity and refinement sit in perfect balance with the joyous celebration of flavours and a messianic elevation of honest ingredients, both foraged and from artisan producers. Slightly distant staff glide between the tables with almost ritualistic purpose.

Set menus include an extendable three-courses at lunchtime to fuller five-or seven-course options. An opening scene-setter of beach rose and tomato broth blends the Turkish delight aromas of foraged petals into a redolent consommé, while a raw beef toast masterfully offsets earthy funk with floral freshness. Follow on with tiny girolles in a Comté and hazelnut cream, draped in creamy slivers of guanciale and finished with shaved white truffle.

Each dish carefully builds the layers of taste, so a perfectly pan-roasted quail gets just enough sweetness and bite from its smoked onion and wilted monk’s beard accompaniments before harmonising the whole in the savoury creaminess of pan juices cut with black pepper yoghurt. Like so many of the dishes, the apparent simplicity of a raspberry and lavender dessert belies meticulous foundations: perfect fruits, seasoned juice, infused cream and a zingy gel.

If you don’t opt for one of the matched drinks flights, then 30-odd pages of all-natural and often unusual wines offer a compendious delight for those with a Mastermind 'specialist subject' interest. There are superlative choices in all categories, but markups are on the ferocious side. The sommelier offers ready advice and the unlisted, daily-changing wines by the glass are well-chosen – even if a measure of trust is expected when it comes to price and style.

Locals wandering down Chandos Road have become accustomed to Wilsons' stained glass sign adorned with stylised cauliflowers, leeks, onions and peppers – their colours glowing vividly whenever the Redland sun shines. The sign is, in fact, rather old: a family heirloom inherited by current owner Mary Wilson, rescued from a restaurant of the same name that operated in west London some decades ago. Nonetheless, it serves as a fitting mission statement for the modern establishment it now advertises, with the emphasis on bright flavours, bright ideas – and, above all, fresh produce.

Wilsons has grown steadily in stature since 2016 – thanks in part to its smallholding, which sits under the flight path to Bristol Airport, and now supplies all vegetables and herbs for the restaurant. Meanwhile, the small, whitewashed dining room is sparsely adorned, apart from a blackboard listing the chalked-up tasting menu and a pair of antlers mounted over the kitchen – where head chef Jan Ostle's own creativity takes flight. 

Our visit opened with a tiny, tangy portion of rich red mullet and clementine soup, swiftly succeeded by bread from Wilsons' bakery next door, accompanied by moreish buttermilk pheasant and light-as-air taramasalata. There was the faintest foretaste of spring in a dish of sea bass with parsley, labneh and wild garlic ‘capers’, and midwinter comfort in the standout serving of lightly cooked monkfish, grilled celeriac, onion and fig leaf. Punchy, gamey flavours predominated, not least in a ‘very red’ combo of perfectly cooked mallard, beetroot and rhubarb, all half-hidden beneath a January King cabbage leaf.

A few pilgrims come for Wilsons’ sublime signature dessert of tarte tatin with bay-leaf ice cream, but many more are attracted by the prospect of a neighbourhood restaurant that delivers against so many metrics: affable staff, green credentials and a thoughtfully assembled wine list – plus a kitchen that knows precisely when to surprise and when to satisfy its customers with value as well as quality.