From pub grub to gourmet: 3 award-winning UK restaurants outside London
Think British food is bad? These award-winning restaurants helmed by the next generation chefs in the UK will make you think again. And one particular venue was simply unforgettable.
Britain traditionally has been derided for its cuisine and resoundingly disregarded as a culinary destination. This is no longer the case. The country has moved on from stodgy pub meals, and chefs are doing incredible things with ingredients. Many take a nose-to-tail approach to cooking, using locally sourced, seasonal produce and pushing epicurean boundaries. And while London may have been where the dining evolution started, some of the best award-winning restaurants are found outside the capital. Here are three that are worth the long-haul flight from Australia.
Ynyshir, Wales
Located on the southern edge of Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park, Ynyshir is a six-hour drive from London – or a 40-minute helicopter jaunt. The drive through Wales is stunning; there are snow-capped peaks in the distance, sheep dotted across farmland with their backs to the wind, and pheasants wandering across the road. But the views are nothing in comparison to the food. Ynyshir is co-owned by Gareth Ward, regularly cited as one of the most exciting chefs in Britain.
Ward arrived at the country house hotel in 2013 and has since turned it into a two Michelin-starred restaurant critics describe as “ballsy and fearlessly experimental”. Ynyshir was named the No. 1 restaurant in the UK in 2022. Ward’s dinner involves 28 miniature courses of perfection over more than five hours. It starts with a Japanese-influenced offering and then his takes on Thailand, China, Wales (of course) and several other countries. He is truly a British marvel and deserves all the acclaim he receives.
Ynyshir is tiny, with only five tables. We are lucky enough to score what is called the “front seat” so we can watch Ward and his team work their magic. They innovate with ingredients such as Japanese hamachi (yellowtail fish), N25 Kaluga caviar, French pigeon, Welsh lamb and Williams pear.
The high standard of the food is matched by the atmosphere. A DJ in the kitchen uses tunes to complement the courses, building to a crescendo as the evening progresses. It may sound unusual but the music is just the right volume and it works. Ynyshir, located in a former Relais & Chateaux hotel, has nine guestrooms, ranging from house rooms and studios to garden rooms. We stay in a studio, which has an outdoor terrace, and it is a delight.
But be warned: this is not a place for people who want to diverge from the menu as there are no alterations, even for allergies. It is also not a venue for those watching their wallets, with the bill coming at close to $1000 a person for dinner. Ouch, but yes, I’d do it all again. This is one of the best meals of my life. Bookings for the restaurant start at £385 ($916) plus VAT a person and rooms are from £250+VAT, twin-share.
Osip, Somerset
Osip is the brainchild of young and wildly talented British chef Merlin Labron-Johnson, who opened it in the village of Bruton in 2019. Late last year, he moved his compact farm-to-table restaurant from the high street to a 300-year-old coaching inn in the rolling countryside. The move has already paid off, with Osip being named this month the UK’s restaurant of the year by British publication The Good Food Guide.
Fans of the one Michelin-star restaurant include fashion designer Stella McCartney, former English footballer and broadcaster Gary Lineker, and ex-politician George Osborne, and it is easy to understand why – the food is as beautiful as the location.
Labron-Johnson is a passionate pickler, which makes sense given the long, wet Somerset winters, and his fervour is reflected in the menu. He also sources many ingredients from his farmlet nearby. Expect to see beetroot tacos and, if the season is right, enjoy fallow deer with smoked quince and grilled radicchio. But the best dish on the menu is the most simple one: Labron-Johnson’s fermented potato brioche glazed in lamb fat. It is enough to turn the most ardent carb-lite eater.
With the change of location, Labron-Johnson will soon be able to cater for out-of-towners by opening four guestrooms above the restaurant. Still under construction, they are due to be finished in April.The cost of dinner is reasonable in comparison with other award-winning establishments, but it’s unlikely prices will remain low because word is spreading. One of the country’s top food critics, The Times’s Giles Coren, recently described his dinner there as “poetic”, and he’s not the only one to gush. Osip is a one-hour, 40-minute train ride or a 2½-hour drive from London. The tasting and vegetarian menus are both £125; lunch is £95.
L’Enclume, Lake District
Frequently topping lists of Britain’s best restaurants, L’Enclume was the first outside London and the south of England to be awarded the Michelin Guide’s highest three-star ranking. Executive chef Simon Rogan is only the third English chef to receive the coveted third star, achieved in 2022 for L’Enclume, and which still holds today.
Rogan sources most of his ingredients from his nearby 5ha farm for this hyper-seasonal restaurant focused on British cuisine. He and his team in the kitchen even choose rapeseed oil – which is widely grown in Britain and has distinctive flowers that create a yellow and green patchwork across the countryside – over imported olive oil.
There is both an a la carte and a 15-course tasting menu. We choose the latter, and by the end of the evening we are convinced food can be art. Fritter of Duroc pig and smoked eel are followed by Boltardy beetroot with hogweed, rosehip and salted West Coast mackerel. The Orkney scallops with dried roe powder are perfectly plump but my favourite dish of the evening is the frozen Tunworth cheese, malt crumb, quince and lemon thyme.
The restaurant is in a whitewashed building that used to be a 13th-century blacksmith’s workshop, hence the name, the French word for anvil. It is a five-hour drive from London, or 1½ hours from Manchester, where former L’Enclume head chef Tom Barnes has just opened a smashingly good restaurant called Skof.
The restaurant has 16 guestrooms and suites in buildings dotted over the tiny village of Cartmel. Closer to home, L’Enclume will return to Sydney’s Bathers’ Pavilion for a six-week residency from July 16 to August 24. Rogan and his team first collaborated with the restaurant in 2023 and attracted a waitlist of more than 2000 tables. Tasting menu £250 a person; wine pairing an additional £100 to £290. Rooms from £306.
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