The best restaurants to eat game
Published 07 November 2024

‘We have been going for over 13 years and it never fails to delight’ is just one testament to the consistently high standards achieved by chef-patron Laurie Gear and his wife Jacqueline over more than two decades at the Artichoke. The plaudits continue, but this attractive, classy little operation on Old Amersham’s main street refuses to stand still. A recent refurbishment has introduced an artichoke colour scheme (as in ‘globe’, not plebeian ‘Jerusalem’) and an etched-resin screen that can be drawn open to reveal the kitchen. This allows diners near the inglenook fireplace – there’s also a private dining room on the first floor – a prime opportunity to watch the chefs patiently creating the components for the various tasting and set menus. Lunch might begin with an appetising cupful of foamy parsnip velouté enhanced by a dainty dollop of truffle cream, both main flavours clear and true. Bread (a miniature loaf of warm wholemeal laced with Chiltern Black Ale) and starters are of equal calibre: lightly smoked trout matched with pungent horseradish cream, rye bread crisps and salty bursts of trout roe, for instance, or a roundel of tender local pork belly, its fat luscious, its accompaniments (cubes of fresh apple, sliced fennel, marigold leaves) adding complementary textural and flavour dimensions. Seasonality suffuses the oft-changing repertoire, so a springtime main course of braised lamb shoulder shares the plate with white asparagus, springy fresh morels, herb couscous (large grains, resembling petits pois) and a wild garlic pesto – the dish made still more mouth-watering with outstanding gravy and a garnish of precisely cooked sweetbreads. Tip-top ingredients are treated with care and skill – witness skrei cod (the salty fillet brilliant white and succulent) with earthy Jersey Royals and plump mussels providing admirable support. The best dessert at inspection was a perfectly wrought passion-fruit soufflé, the zesty fruit also enlivening an accompanying scoop of ice cream. ‘Extremely well-drilled’ staff ensure a meal here is thoughtfully paced, while a knowledgeable sommelier administers the highly impressive wine list. France, Italy and the fruits of the Rothschild vineyards are the strengths, but the collection also ranges from Uruguay to Croatia and Corsica. Even the entry-point glasses (including an Armenian red and an Austrian Riesling) hold ample interest and flavour. The main drawback? Everything at the Artichoke is ‘rather pricey’, but Amersham regulars mind not a jot.

Here we have a little haven of French provincial cooking amid the bustle of Borough Market, a neat, simply dressed bistro with candles on the tables and a menu featuring pâté en croûte, grilled ox heart with Café de Paris butter, and a daily line-up of blackboard specials. Clare Lattin and Tom Hill cut their teeth at London’s Ducksoup, then moved on to osteria Emilia in Devon, so they have serious chops when it comes to running restaurants. There’s nothing quite like the buzz in here when the place is full, with upbeat service adding to the all-round joie de vivre.

The kitchen is run by Elliot Hashtroudi, who takes due account of seasonal British produce for a series of delicious French vignettes where each plate is allowed to shine in its own right. We kicked off with a snack of smoked eel served atop curried devilled eggs, before tackling a starter of white crabmeat perfectly matched with a barattiere melon and cucumber emulsion, heritage tomatoes and a melon granita. For the main course, the richness of a superb Welsh pork schnitzel (crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside) was offset by a salad of greengage and crispy pig's ear – although a combo of octopus, pig's trotter and bacon looked equally intriguing. 

To finish, we were taken by the peach tart and the canelé with lemon curd, but finally settled for a rich dark chocolate marquise topped with Chantilly cream and beef-fat salted caramel. A dozen low-intervention wines from small French and Italian producers start at £35, with by-the-glass selections changing each day.

'One of those old-school places where everything is just done right; a proper treat,’ was one reader’s verdict on Richard Corrigan’s ‘brilliant’ Mayfair flagship. Culinary aspirations are sky-high but the kitchen keeps its feet firmly on the earth, offering everything from a classic opener such as roast veal sweetbread with langoustine, peas and soda bread crumb to a pie of poulet de bresse chicken, morels and artichokes that has been deemed ‘historically good’. Furred and feathered game is always a feature in season, while Irish beef is a solid mainstay throughout the year. Influences from the chef’s native Ireland are melded with foraged foods and tip-top supplies from artisan producers, while a sense of clubby nostalgia permeates the place, ‘complemented by staff who clearly like to see guests having a good time.’ Lunch and dinner ‘du jour’ menus are devoid of any sense of corner-cutting, especially when the finish line is reached via a spring fruit salad or Eve’s pudding with apple and rhubarb. The wine list is vast and authoritative, opening with a changing seasonal selection and including a classy by-the-glass selection.

A gem of a village pub, owned and run by Will Orrock and his wife Cassidy Hughes, where there’s more than a passing nod to the Fergus Henderson (St John) school of cookery. Chef Adam Spicer's menu is brisk – beautiful ingredients are left relatively unadorned, and flavours are full. What a vol-au-vent lacks in flighty height it makes up for in crispness and the springtime deliciousness of foraged morels and wild garlic, and how good to see tenderly seared cuttlefish among the starters, alongside a silken ink-black mayonnaise studded with cod's roe – don't forget to save some of the excellent house bread for mayo-scooping purposes.

A terrine of brawn and ‘blood cake’ is as muscular as its name suggests, but alongside the heft is deft culinary balance from the crunchy bite of radishes and some zippy piccalilli. As for seafood, expect a few luxuries. The delicate flavour of lobster is somewhat swamped by its coronation sauce, although a turbot main course is memorably good. Served with fat mussels, the saline pep of monk’s beard and a gently spiced mouclade sauce, it’s a dish to hurry back for. Local produce stars throughout – from vegetables and leaves courtesy of nearby organic Maple Farm to chocolate from Pump Street or the St Jude cow’s curd served alongside a caramel tart. This is ‘proper cooking,’ notes one reporter.

The Greyhound is also a proper boozer, welcoming drinkers for honest sustenance. Do check out the great-value bar snacks – say Welsh rarebit or a ploughman’s including homemade pork pie and house pickles. Perfect with a pint, or a glass from a wine list which is fit for every occasion – be it a classy Burgundy (a 2021 Saint-Aubin 1er cru ‘Clos du Meix’ from family-owned Domaine Hubert Lamy, perhaps), a steely Austrian Riesling from the Arndorfer winery or a simple lunchtime sip from the Languedoc.

Brett Graham (The Ledbury) and Mike Robinson (game specialist) opened the Harwood Arms on a quiet residential street near Fulham Broadway in 2009, and the kitchen shows a long-running commitment to prime British produce, delivering a concise seasonal menu of four choices at each course – an extremely likeable line-up of reinvented classics we would be happy to eat on a regular basis. It seemed only fitting to kick off with the dish most associated with this pub – a punchy, golden-brown venison Scotch egg accompanied by Oxford sauce, much copied but rarely bettered. This was followed by a superb warm pumpkin tart topped with Quicke’s goat’s cheese, which worked well with a mushroom purée. Complete technique was on show in a dish of excellent Berkshire fallow deer served with a faggot, red leaves and cranberries, as well as in Cornish monkfish (on the bone) topped with brown shrimps and accompanied by roasted cauliflower, tenderstem broccoli and brown crab butter. The accompanying deep-fried new potatoes with garlic butter had us nodding with pleasure. Desserts are convincingly puddingy and feel absolutely right for the setting – from a perfect custard flan with caramel and spiced plum ice cream to a pineapple upside-down cake with malted treacle and crème-fraîche ice cream. The dining area is a low-key space decked out with dark green wood panelling, a proudly displayed stag's head and generously spaced tables (with cutlery kept in a brown-leather gamekeeper's holster). The vibe is relaxed and service is friendly without being overly chatty. To drink, there is quality across the price-spectrum, from a selection of 21 wines by the glass (from £7) to high-calibre representation from Burgundy (including top producer, Domaine Ramonet) as well as Bordeaux's Left Bank.

A block or two from Piccadilly Gardens, Higher Ground is run by a triumvirate who met while working at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills in New York State. They have now rocked up at the corner of an office building in, naturally, New York Street, to bring up-to-the-minute bistro food to a vanguard gastronomic city. Much of what comes into the kitchen is supplied by their own farm Cinderwood, a market garden smallholding in Cheshire, and its vivid intensities of flavour inspire chefs and diners alike. Eaten in a bright, spacious airport-style space, with counter seating as well as tables, the result is dishes that you will want to share, rather than merely being told that you have to. Green pea and spring garlic fritters enriched with Isle of Mull Cheddar won't touch the sides, and there are pedigree cured meats such as 12-month air-dried culatello or the cannily sourced salami taormina from Curing Rebels of Brighton. Fish cookery is of the first water: Scottish turbot with grilled lettuce, spring onions and basil is perfect with a side order of waxy Marfona potatoes dressed in roasted yeast and smoked butter. Desserts are, surprisingly, of a more delicate persuasion than puds and cheesecake. Try house-cultured yoghurt with preserved gooseberry and bay leaf, or milk ice cream given a little fairground pizzazz with chocolate malt fudge. Speciality bottled ales from the English regions are a plus point, and wine-drinkers can be sure their tipple will have been left to its own devices as far as possible, turning burnt orange for Ardèche Marsanne or abashed pink for Sicilian rosato. House fizz is a Crémant de Limoux.

Joshua and Victoria Overington opened Mýse (pronounced 'meez') in the summer of 2023. It's a converted inn snuggled in a sleepy North Yorkshire village, but with ideas that lift it way out of the country-pub norm. The name is the Anglo-Saxon word that denoted ceremonial dining at table, though that shouldn't lead you to expect a mýse-hrægel (tablecloth). Formerly head chef at Le Cochon Aveugle in York, Joshua leads a team that is single-mindedly dedicated to the principles of modern sustainable cooking, with foraging, fermenting, pickling and infusing high on everybody's skill-set.

Nibbles set the tone: Ripon roe deer in fermented plum sauce topped with smoked Exmoor caviar in a little charcoal tartlet; a hay-vinegared quail's egg on mushroom parfait; a twig brochette of ox cheek braised in ale, then deep-fried in Yorkshire-pudding batter – layers of flavour and stunning richness rolling out even before you have reached the dining room. An Orkney scallop is very lightly poached in sea-urchin butter and served in the shell on a bed of seaweed. The thrift principle extends to turning last year's squash seeds into a 'miso' which is used to garnish a soup of this year's squash, its texture firmed up with a little pumpkin-seed granola.

A crown of duck is introduced by being carried regally about the room, and now begins its culinary act. After a presentation of duck charcuterie with a crumpet of liver mousse, plus a richly spicy broth flavoured with walnut and orange, comes a thick slice of the breast served with game sausage, confit beetroot and black-walnut relish. A pair of desserts is interspersed with the petits fours, which makes them less of an afterthought than usual – the finale being a flourless fig tart with an ice cream of fig leaves from the garden. Overington himself comes to the table and fires up the dish with flaming Yorkshire rum, harking us back to the dear old flambé days of our gilded youth.

The food is matched by an excellent drinks list, which takes in inspired non-alcoholic sodas and kombuchas, imaginative cocktails and a decent selection of wines in small glasses, from a mere £5 for a quality Vinho Verde. Bottle prices ascend rapidly, but the choices are exceptionally good, through to a Georgian Saperavi and Peloponnese Agiorgitiko.

Sited in a Queen Anne townhouse in Holborn, this was the first of the Noble Rot triplets to emerge, and it established the format to perfection. There is a distinguished menu of Anglo-French cooking, there are small-plate snacks in the bar area, a long counter, walls full of appealing prints, and – not least – a wine list that, from teeny taster tots to bottles of the world's finest, coaxes all palates and pockets to try out new things and celebrate the old.

A reporter who knows his black puddings found nothing but admiration for the Christian Parra boudin noir, served here with chicory roasted in port. That was followed by Yorkshire pheasant with soft, positively gooey polenta given textural heft with chestnuts. Another seasoned diner writes that ‘Saturday lunch is my happy place,’ and where better to spend it than on the set menu here, which offers superb value and unforgettable flavours into the bargain?

It might start with something as simple as egg mayonnaise, a perfectly pitched boiled egg in sumptuous, glossy dressing with an assertive mustard kick, criss-crossed with a pair of Ortiz anchovies. Proceed to a dish of morteau sausage on mustard-strafed soupy lentils, and a wodge of the house sourdough to mop up. On the main menu, things get even classier, when Cornish brill in vin jaune with Alsace bacon competes with Swaledale mutton chops and puntarelle for favour. The bistro desserts rise to the stars for crème caramel with Sauternes raisins or the near-perfect lemon tart, ‘just the right side of mouth-puckering with citrus, then sinking into sweet creaminess’.

The wine list, meanwhile, is worth spending a while with: there are glasses of more obscure and overlooked wines among the first battalions, with Coravin selections of those in their finest array to follow on. Choices across the globe are hardly ever less than excellent, and if you're on a splash, there are few better spreads of Champagne in London.

A self-styled ‘progressive working-class caterer’ back in Victorian times, the Quality Chop House is still providing a great service under its current custodians, and its spirit is buoyant. QCH is moving with the times too – although the Grade II-listing ensures its heritage will always be faithfully preserved. In the main dining room, a central walkway with chequerboard flooring is flanked by oak benches and narrow tables with cast-iron legs, while an arched doorway offers a glimpse of the kitchen. The walls are partially panelled, with mirrors and chalkboards above. We thought the food was excellent, well-considered and ‘unapologetic in its excess’, with a few defiantly British faithfuls such as game and hazelnut terrine or Yorkshire mallard with January king cabbage rubbing shoulders with Euro-accented ideas including Suffolk lamb osso buco or Brixham pollack with brown shrimp grenobloise and celeriac. True to form, steaks and chops are the headliners: the fat cap on our mangalitza bacon chop was three-quarters of an inch thick and effortlessly melted in the mouth with an intense savouriness, while the lengthy wait for a slab of Hereford sirloin was justified by the appearance of the steak alone. Served sliced off the bone on antique crockery, the deep-brown crust lightly glistened in its own juices, while the flesh was deep-pink and cooked evenly throughout. To accompany, the much-imitated confit potatoes were wonderfully crisp, and Brussels tops made a welcome appearance gilded with Parmesan. If you still have room, desserts offer high-calorie comfort in the shape of, say, treacle tart with clotted cream or Pump Street chocolate mousse with Seville orange. Service is warm and attentive, with everything running seamlessly; staff are also spot-on when it comes to recommendations from the wide-ranging wine list. Quality Wines next door is also worth checking out.

A fixture of dining out in the heart of the West End since the time of George III, Rules is now well into its third century of operations. It remains a gloriously unreconstructed monument to British ways of dining, coming into its own particularly during the game season. A diner who knows his birds regretted the seeming obsolescence of the grouse season these days, but was relieved to find a red-legged partridge on the bill of fare in September. A silver pint tankard of Black Velvet (Champagne got up in a sombre coat of Guinness, originally to mourn the passing of Prince Albert in 1861) makes for a satisfying entrée to the Rules experience.

Dishes that have slipped into the heritage category are treated as if they were still the acme of gastronomy – witness the steak and kidney suet pudding freighted with tender succulent beef and intensely flavoured offal (plus an oyster too, if you will), together with another silver vessel, this time a boat of extra gravy. Add sides of dauphinoise and creamed spinach, and satisfaction is complete.

Start perhaps with stuffed mussels replete with garlic and herb butter, topped with breadcrumbs, or one of the daringly modern salads – smoked ham, pomegranate and blood-orange, or beetroot, apple, walnut and blue cheese – the better to enjoy the richness to come. Main-course fish includes a salmon escalope napped with Champagne chive butter, but meat options tend to be the favourites: a ‘cassoulet’ made with rabbit, smoked bacon and black pudding, for example. Treacle tart and orchard fruit crumbles are de rigueur for afters, but flourless blood-orange and chocolate cake shows that not all passing trends pass Rules by.

A deeply traditional wine list opens with a Rhône red and a dry white Bordeaux by the glass. Service, from initial halloo to fond farewell, is impeccable throughout, while the decorative style (complete with glistening burnished wood, classical figurines, old prints and paintings) augments the atmosphere a treat. Be prepared, though, for a steep, narrow ascent to the bathrooms.

‘I have felt welcome and at home here for many years,' comments one regular. Some restaurants can make you happy as soon as you step over the threshold. Such is the case at this locally loved eatery tucked within a farmers' market, a stone’s throw from Canterbury West station. With its own farm and deep connection with local producers – the Goods Shed celebrates its quarter centenary in 2025 – it fits the whole farmers’ market ethos perfectly: you’ll often see a chef picking out produce from the market stalls.

There are no tasting menus here, just a daily changing blackboard with about five choices per course. Former sous-chef Morgan Lewis has taken over the kitchen, and his devotedly seasonal and unfettered menu doesn’t beat about the bush, delivering the likes of grilled squid with lemon and green sauce or cold roast pork with anchoïade, fried capers and pickled cucumber – two starters that say it all. Generous mains are often reboot of old-school classics such as a meaty pork chop with a richly indulgent cauliflower purée, cauliflower salad and a glossy, meaty sauce. Or you could savour a brandade fishcake with a butter sauce dotted with caviar and topped with rocket and salmon roe.

To finish, choux buns filled with strawberry and vodka ice cream and white chocolate provide a perfect parting shot. To drinks, there’s a brief, efficient list of European (and English) wines plus a small selection of cocktails, as well as a decent line-up of Kentish ales and cider. Charming service seals the deal.

Images: Sally Gurteen

‘Great food, magnificent countryside and no passport queues!’ cheered one reporter, while another simply proclaimed, ‘This is all about happiness’. They were referring to the tastefully refreshed Gordon Arms – a fine old coaching inn, now a family-run restaurant with rooms. Guests are drawn into the comforting solidity of well-banked fires, convivial chat and a sense of respite from travel, while seasonality, sustainability and local sourcing are the kitchen’s watchwords. There’s a keen eye for value, too, although eating here also feels ‘elegant and exclusive’. Expect carefully prepared, rustic food from a chef who understands the quality of his raw materials and is content to let them shine: Yarrow Valley venison salami, wild garlic from the Ettrick Valley, beef from the Borders’ herds, and a veritable harvest festival of pickings from the orchard and garden. Elsewhere, honey from the glen is used to dress a ricotta-stuffed courgette flower, while rare-breed pork loin might be paired with ‘nduja-spiced chickpeas. The wine list is well-focused, with some interesting options and a decent selection by the glass or carafe.

Slaggyford's finest, the Kirkstyle, has been a watering hole since the 19th century, although it did service as the local rectory for many centuries before that. In ravishing open moorland near the Cumbrian border, it capitalises on its rugged location by bringing in pedigree produce from across the county of Northumberland. Pasture-raised sheep and cattle, together with seasonal game and fish, adorn Connor Wilson's enterprising menus, and the immaculate presentational style is full of contemporary chic, although it doesn't occlude the essentially straightforward approach to its distinguished ingredients.

A party who undertook an intrepid three-hour drive weren't disappointed, but instead sang the praises of a pigeon pie starter in cherry gravy, as well as the concluding Darling Blue (cheese) panna cotta with plums and walnuts ('a work of alchemy'). Lucky locals also take full advantage of this 'fantastic community hub'. Diners might kick off with a scallop alongside mushroom and spelt ragoût and hollandaise, while mains pump up the volume for pork collar and crispy jowl with carrot and fermented hispi, or pollock and mussels with celeriac and kale. There are, of course, crowd-pulling Sunday roasts, and if you're after something offbeat to finish, look to madeleine with blackberries and woodruff.

The magnificent wine list wouldn't let the side down at a Mayfair boutique, albeit at mark-ups that Mayfair hasn't seen in half a century. French classics lead the charge, but are followed by a Brazilian Chardonnay, a German Pinot, Swiss Dôle, Uruguayan Tannat – it's all good.

Nothing is quite as reassuringly rural as eating in a raftered barn, especially a 400-year-old one. Throw in some landscape pictures, crisply clothed tables and staff who radiate enthusiasm from every pore, and we're sold. Of course, the plentiful local produce that teems forth from the kitchen has something to do with it too, and here is where chef Charlotte Oliver really shines. His dishes are a mix of traditional European cooking and modern ideas, but with Wyken running through them like a stick of rock.

The estate's venison might feature in a rissole to start, teamed with celeriac rémoulade and jam from Wyken damsons, while wine from the surrounding vineyards (an aromatic Bacchus enriched with garlic and cream) is used as the cooking medium for Brancaster mussels. More of that wine makes a silky velouté to sauce smoked cod, which appears with pickled oyster mushrooms and dill – or there could be a classic assemblage of pork belly and tenderloin with pommes Anna, sprouting broccoli, black pudding and Wyken apple in jus noisette.

Sweet favourites furnish a dessert selection that includes trifle, panna cotta and pavlova, as well as dark chocolate mousse with poached pear, olive oil and sea salt. The estate's wines feature strongly on the list, and there is also a hoppy, malty house ale called Good Dog.

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.