Top UK restaurants 2024

Patri

You might miss Patri on the street outside, but once you step inside, it is like being transported to a train in New Delhi. With its shutters, dark wood interiors and multi-coloured hanging light bulbs, you'll be cocooned in this intimate setting. But once the food starts to arrive the last thing diners will be thinking about is their surroundings. Patri offers The Grand Thali, a unique experience allowing a group to sample two starters alongside 26 authentic Indian street-food dishes, with rice and garlic naan. Patience is a virtue, and you should be prepared for a wait, but it's certainly worthwhile. With so much to choose from, it's difficult to pick a stand-out dish. Surprisingly, the vegan chatpati aloo tikki chaat starter is perhaps one of the best – comprising fragrant spicy potato patties and chickpeas, tossed in a chutney bursting with flavour. In the Grand Thali, the dishes that really sing are those you can tell are truly cooked with soul. The butter chicken has a rich, creamy, and so moreish, sauce, while the paneer curry is soft and delicious. Be sure to wear trousers with an expandable waistline. You'll certainly need them.

Little Dumpling King

There's not much to thank Covid for, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. But it did at least give us Little Dumpling King. This self-styled "Asian-influenced small plates" restaurant in Stoke-on-Trent, which "emerged out of various lockdown projects", is a place that beats you into "happy submission with plate after plate of huge, banging flavours". Everything about it is loud, from the incessant music (a mix of heavy metal and "2000s indie") to the posters proclaiming things such as "We hate the f**king government". But "behind the bravado and the noise", there's an impressive attention to detail. Plump steamed pork dumplings are "full of depth and meatiness", and are served with lashings of homemade crispy chilli oil. Slices of salmon crudo come with a soy and green-herb oil dressing as well as "bursting wild garlic buds, picked and pickled months ago". I'd formed a positive view of the team behind Little Dumpling King before I visited, owing to their ferocious denunciations on social media of the "racist thugs" who caused trouble in Stoke during the riots that swept England in August. On sampling their food, "I fell in love with them all over again".

Stage

This 20-seater Exeter restaurant is modest in proportion, says Jay Rayner in The Observer, but its ambitions are not small. Run by a "cooly talented young team", it offers "well priced, wittily crafted tasting menus", based on whatever ingredients happen to be available. There's no written menu: staff explain the dishes as they arrive. Some ingredients are described as coming from "Granny's garden", by which they mean the garden in Bodmin that belongs to the "grandmother of one of the chef-partners' girlfriends". We start with home-cured charcuterie: venison salami ("with a pleasing tang of armpit"), 24-month-aged ham, "soft and smoky" jerky. A succession of plated dishes follow, all of which are "bloody good". Sirloin steak is bathed in a miso and caper butter; crisp-skinned grey mullet with baba ganoush sits in a "fragrant puddle of dill oil". Puddings include a "minor miracle" of an apple tarte tatin, glazed with hibiscus, whisky and miso caramel. Everything is served with "twinkly eyed enthusiasm", as if the staff know how fabulous this place is "and are delighted you're experiencing it".

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The Punch Bowl Inn

There's a reassuring robustness to this Lake District pub, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday, which can be seen not just in its "solid and comfortable" interior, but also in its pleasingly traditional menu. The food is "mainly British with a Gallic burr", and makes full use of the "magnificent" local larder. For starters, there's a "sublime" twice-baked cheese soufflé (made with "one of the world's great cheeses", Mrs Kirkham's) and an "equally splendid" mushroom soup, which is "both light and gutsy". My main course of lamb rump consists of "four vast, just-pink slices, drenched in the stickiest, most gloriously intense of gravies". And by its side, there's a tiny shepherd's pie, offering "one bite of pure ovine brilliance". Puddings are no less splendid: a "beautifully sharp" lemon tart comes with damson sorbet (this part of the Lake District being famed for its damsons); and banana soufflé is served with a sticky-toffee sauce, to "pour deep into its molten centre". Serving "good old-fashioned food, immaculately done", The Punch Bowl Inn is the "sort of pub designed for lingering".

Leydi

"Long experience tells me" that when well- known chefs open restaurants in hotels, the results are usually disappointing, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. Not so, however, with this all-day Turkish restaurant from Selin Kiazim, formerly of the "much-loved Oklava", in the Hyde hotel in London. Far from being "just another tepid hotel dining room", Leydi is a beguiling "whirlwind of a restaurant". The room itself is "gorgeous": elegant, with "boho flourishes". And the cooking more than matches it. We order "The Leydi Deluxe" – described as a showcase of the restaurant's "greatest hits" – and at £50 a head, it offers "exceptional value", given the sheer amount of food involved. There are homemade potato crisps, tossed in spices; flatbreads with a "mountain of sesame salted butter"; aubergine pounded with garlic and mustard; garlic yoghurt doused with red urfa chilli oil; various kebabs; and a "heaving" bowl of fruits, lemon sorbet and biscuits for dessert. By the end, I regret not being a guest at the hotel: a bed "within 100 metres of our tables" would be very welcome.

Ambassadors Clubhouse

This new venture from JKS – the people behind Gymkhana and many other top London restaurants – is a "paean to grandness, cocktails and snacking", says Grace Dent in The Guardian. Occupying the site off London's Regent Street that formerly housed Momo, it specialises in the food of the "undivided Punjab" – the pre-Partition province which straddled India and what is now Pakistan. If much about the place seems designed to "lead you astray" – there are three types of margarita, and the decor is "lavishly anti- minimalist" – the food is both authentic and delicious. We begin with a selection of "small snacky plates": a dipping bowl of bone-marrow masala served with a basket of mutton keema naan; a gloriously "ornate" beetroot raj kachori chaat. The mains that follow are not bland and indistinguishable "curries", but dishes with traditional names such as matka and karahi, and featuring ingredients such as rabbit, guinea fowl and lobster. While the prices for some of them might "make you gasp", the "portion sizes are healthy"; and if you order wisely, a meal here is still "semi- affordable". With dedicated staff who know the "story behind each dish", Ambassadors Clubhouse is another winner from JKS – and at least for now, it's "easier to get into than Gymkhana".

Rochelle Canteen

When it opened in 2004, Rochelle Canteen consisted of "one big sharing table, and a box for a till", says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. Today, Melanie Arnold and Margot Henderson's restaurant operates in a more conventional fashion – but it hasn't lost its intimate feel. Indeed, it is "very much a family affair": the kitchen is now run by Margot's son, and his sister is "part of the brilliant front-of-house team". As for the food, it is as good as ever: from a sensational girolle and pecorino tart to a "seriously superior" roast Sutton Hoo chicken, everything we ate was "beautifully done". Located in a magically quiet spot "a mere hop, skip and a jump away from the din and rumble of Shoreditch High Street", Rochelle Canteen provides, like all great restaurants, a "welcome respite from the daily grind".

Tharavadu

"It's easy to roll your eyes" at the lengthy descriptions accompanying the items on the menu at this Keralan restaurant, says Jay Rayner in The Guardian. "Experience the bold and flavourful taste of Kerala's iconic street food with our signature beef dish," one begins, before carrying on for another four lines. But perhaps this is "my problem", not the restaurant's, because what the verbosity in fact signals is a warm determination to "show us a good time". And that, Tharavadu certainly does, with cooking that's a "cheery marriage of layered flavours, bold aromatics" and fiery heat tempered by the generous use of coconut. Our meal begins with the sort of platter of snacks and pickles that one might normally pick at absent-mindedly. This one, however, "invites focus". Then comes a dish of "padipura mix" seafood that is a "stonking display of both fish cookery and loose portion control"; an egg curry side dish that's "hugely comforting"; and a "curling cylinder" of potato masala dosa. The staff tell us they will soon be taking over a top-floor space that can seat 350. Given what Tharavadu has to offer, that "can only be a good thing".

Native

This recently opened restaurant on the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border is "properly fabulous", says William Sitwell in The Telegraph. It reminds me of the kind of restaurants with rooms you'd only find in France, and which the Michelin Guide used to celebrate: "impeccably staffed" establishments serving food "linked to the land". Native is housed in a "handsome barn", with the kitchen at one end and a bar at the entrance. After "bites on the terrace" – local hams, tacos and a "miraculous bread" that looks ordinary but tastes like a croissant – we get stuck into the menu proper. "Regeneration risotto" is a masterclass in texture: made of local grains, it is "deeply green" and comes with a whole crisp nettle on the top, as if "daring you to eat it". A dish of Ryeland mutton is "literally the finest mutton I have ever tasted": it's cooked two ways, with one portion a "sliced disc of the stuff circled in fat", the other a "more blackened rectangle" with an incredible "chocolatey" flavour. A "marrowmel" dessert is strikingly audacious: essentially, it's a bone-marrow crème brûlée. "God, so sweet, naughty and moreish." Don't be put off by Native's out-of-the-way location: it's definitely "worth the journey".

Kanpai Classic

"Expensively minimalist decor"; "napkins so white they glow"; a menu specialising in wagyu beef. Kanpai Classic would be the "perfect Mayfair restaurant", were it not located "bang smack in the middle of Soho", says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. But though less "low key" than many Soho venues, it still offers excellent cooking – and value for money, if you choose wisely. My advice is to go for the "yakiniku wagyu moriawase" menu, which costs just under £60. You get six different wagyu cuts, all "delicately grilled" next to your table; they range from "utterly sensational" tongue to sirloin and short rib. Everything is "lasciviously sweet and salaciously rich". Throw in a wooden pot of the "magnificent" kamameshi – a traditional rice dish – and you'll still escape for less than £80 a head, which for food of this quality is a "hell of a deal".

The Clifton

"When it comes to modern British cooking bingo, The Clifton has a full house," said Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. This "gently refurbished Bristol pub", with a dining room in the back, boasts "a daily changing, seasonal menu", ingredients sourced from "artisan local suppliers", a "nose-to-tail ethos", and even a head chef (Cory Scott) who has worked at St. John in London. Happily, Scott "sure can cook". Things get off to a "robust start" with ox-heart skewers that are "warmly spiced and seductively chewy". Then devilled lamb kidneys, "the lobes plump, pink and slyly sweet"; "immaculately fried" soft-shell crab with a "pink blob of luscious, langoustine-spiked mayonnaise"; and a rabbit and bacon pie topped with "magnificent burnished, buttery shortcrust pastry". If you have room after such a feast, you should definitely try the puddings, perhaps a "glorious wodge of rhubarb and custard tart", or a "deliriously airy plum soufflé". This pub may have all the familiar "stripped wooden floorboards, local ales and discreet shades of green", but it's doing something really rather special in the kitchen. Melding the "big and bold with the light and lithe", it delivers serious food that Bristol can be proud of.

Novikov

The list of celebrities who have dined at Novikov's Asian restaurant, in Mayfair, central London, is almost as extensive as the menu – an A3-sized card listing a collection of the world's most plutocratic ingredients. Japan claims the lion's share of the dishes, from sashimi to wagyu, but China is well represented too, with dim sum enriched by king crab and black cod. From Europe comes truffle and caviar (and more next door, in a separate dining room that serves regional Italian classics). The real attraction, though, is the sushi. Yellowtail and coriander sashimi hits the high notes, with its bright citrus marinade, while fatty tuna carpaccio, laden with truffle, strikes a weightier chord. The decor is equally dramatic. "The most striking feature is the glass-walled kitchen," said Wallpaper*, "surrounded by a market-style display of seafood, aromatic duck and vegetables". Chefs ply their elaborate trade under an array of spotlights, then send out their creations into a dark, glossy dining room. Not too dark, though. There's just enough light to see the A-listers at the next table.

The Tamil Crown

"The Tamil Crown in Islington, north London, was once a pub called The Prince Albert, founded 185 years ago," said William Sitwell in The Telegraph. Then in 2007, it was renamed The Charles Lamb after the essayist, who lived nearby; now, it is The Tamil Crown and has been turned into a "respectable curry house". It has kept its pub feel – there's still a bar, and beers on tap – but punters can choose from a "tight menu of south Indian food". Unlike those "ubiquitous Indian restaurants whose laminated menus offer a thousand dishes" of confused origin, this one suggests just six small plates, six large ones, roti and rice. On my visit, there were a couple of misses – lacklustre samosas and an "over-saffroned" pudding – but many other dishes to make up for them: lamb chops that had been "flawlessly blackened" over a grill; "a bowl of gloriously wet, dal-like mango sambar"; some "really excellent, thin and so-buttery-it's-almost-wrong rotis".

Arabic Flavour

A word of warning, said Jay Rayner in The Observer: do not go to Arabic Flavour in Wales hoping to be served quickly. "Do not go ravenously hungry. Prepare a few conversational gambits. Perhaps do not go in a large group. But really, do go." The slowness of the service is due to the fact that the cooking – all of it – is done by Ghofran Hamza, a young Syrian who arrived in Wales in 2018 on a UN refugee resettlement programme, and is now telling her very "21st century story at the stove". The restaurant, which she runs with her Greek partner, is a "quietly elegant space of guttering tea lights and sandstone-coloured walls hung with bursts of Arabic art"; and while the dishes it serves will sound familiar – baba ganoush, tabbouleh, falafel – everything is cooked with real skill, and is "delightful".

Laghi's

This long-lived Italian restaurant in Edgbaston has recently hired as its chef former "MasterChef: The Professionals" winner Stu Deeley, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. And he "can really cook". His menu is "traditional Italian, by way of modern Britain": fat pig's-head fritters; queenie scallops in a buttery espelette sauce. The pastas are "seriously" good – the equal of anything at The River Café or Locanda Locatelli, and at a "fraction of the price". Properly al dente campanelli is coated with "just the right amount of fierily porky 'nduja sauce"; rigatoni cacio e pepe is "robustly sharp and salty". No single pasta dish costs more than £11.50, which is "astonishing value for cooking of this quality". Birmingham is full of good restaurants – and I've discovered "yet another true Brummie beauty".

Catch at the Old Fish Market

"It was not with the lightest of hearts" that I set off for my lunch in Weymouth, says Giles Coren in The Times. My previous two trips out of town had been ruined by train cancellations – and I worried that I'd again be forced to endure a nightmarish journey home. But the trains turned out to be "perfectly punctual" and, better still, I came back wondering if I'd been "to the best restaurant in the world". Situated on the first floor of Weymouth's Old Fish Market, Catch offers a "constantly changing" set menu – which at lunch comprises four courses, and costs only £40. Every dish came close to perfection. A "beautiful piece" of grilled local trout was served with a warm potato salad, puréed watercress and a "warm, golden brioche" that may have been the best bread I've ever tasted. Flakes of barbecued gurnard were piled, along with sliced morels and slivers of raw apple, into a staggeringly light and crispy pastry case. I asked Mike Naidoo, the "exec chef and co-owner", how he managed it all for £40 – and he explained that since they have their own boats, this "knocks out the soaring price of fish". My trip to Weymouth – which I initially so dreaded – proved to be "one of the happiest working afternoons of my life".

Liu Xiaomian

I've been to this restaurant three times since it opened last month, says Charlotte Ivers in The Sunday Times – which "pretty much tells you all you need to know". It began life as a market stall run by two flatmates – both expats from the Chinese city of Chongqing – before moving to the basement of The Jackalope, a pub in Marylebone. While it continues to operate there, it now has its first purpose-designed site: "a bright, no-frills little canteen" just off Regent Street. As its name suggests, it specialises in xiaomian – a type of spicy noodle dish popular in Chongqing. The thin wheat noodles come in a broth; you select toppings – pork, beef, vegan, pig trotter – and spice level. Noodles are a "competitive field", but these are perhaps the best I've ever had. I choose the minced pork and chickpea topping, requesting "mild": the dish is "pretty much perfect, and still blissfully, joyfully hot". You can also have wontons (also served in broth), which are equally outstanding. My walk home takes me past a ramen restaurant – and I "feel sad for everyone inside".

The Small Canteen

The name of this restaurant "isn't whimsy", says Jay Rayner in The Observer: situated on a residential corner in Newcastle's Sandyford, it occupies a space that used to be a sandwich shop. But while its proportions are diminutive, the "classic bistro" fare served up by chef Sam Betts could hardly be more "rich and generous". A light and springy double-cooked cheddar soufflé sits in a "lake of chive-flecked, cheese-boosted béchamel". A slab of confit pork terrine – served at perfect room temperature – has the "thickness of a big Stephen King novel". Mains are similarly abundant: "fork-tender" braised beef cheek on a "duvet of mash" comes with roasted shallots and "slabs of smoked bacon"; three butternut squash ravioli, served with beurre noisette, are "each the size of saucers". Everything is "bloody marvellous", and it's surprisingly good value too: starters and puds are £8; mains are "around £18". In fact, that's my one worry about The Small Canteen: can such modest pricing be sustainable? I really hope so, because it's "one of the good places", and it "needs to survive".

Claridge's Restaurant

Over the years, the main dining room at Claridge's has played host to some of the biggest names in cooking, says Grace Dent in The Guardian: Gordon Ramsay, Simon Rogan and New York chef Daniel Humm have all had restaurants here. But its latest iteration breaks the mould – for it is now a "straightforward restaurant", with a "low-key" head chef in Coalin Finn. Don't come here expecting a 16-course tasting menu, or dishes listed only by their component ingredients. Instead, you'll find a short menu divided into clear sections, which is full of "unchallenging yet pleasing terms" such as steak au poivre and roasted Norfolk chicken. Everything is well-judged and delicious – from the "beautifully dressed" seafood in the plateau de fruits de mer to the stunning baked alaska for two, which the staff set ablaze at your table. This isn't cooking to "ooh and ah over". But in a London restaurant landscape "teeming with groundbreaking, puzzling, horizon-expanding dining experiences", it is wonderful to be reminded of the virtues of old-fashioned simplicity. From about £80 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service.

Kopitiam Unit 19

You could walk past this "unassuming Malaysian café" in Oxford "without giving it a second glance", says Tom Parker Bowles in the Daily Mail. But that would be a big mistake. For the food it serves is "magnificent" – and eating here costs barely more than it does at Pret. There are two menus – one Chinese-leaning, the other made up of "Malaysian classics" – and my advice is to stick to the latter. An establishment's roti canai "always set the tone of the lunch ahead": here, they're "charred, just chewy and delicate as silk handkerchiefs". Everything else is "as it should be", including "mellifluous chicken curry, cooked on the bone", and Nanyang prawn noodle soup, made with a "rich and brooding" stock that has a "deep crustacean grunt". That you can dine at Kopitiam and lunch on "serious Malaysian food, for just over £15 a head, makes me very happy indeed".

The Star Inn

Lodged in the mind of every Englishman is the ideal of a perfect country pub, says Charlotte Ivers in The Sunday Times. What a pity, then, that so many forays into the English countryside in search of this ideal end in disappointment. "Well, joyous day": the perfect pub does exist, in the tiny North Yorkshire village of Harome. The acclaimed Star Inn has "twinkling lights and thatched roof"; inside, it's all dark and cosy, with "wood panels and antique furniture". Andrew Pern – a chef from a family of local farmers – bought the inn in 1996 and has since turned it into a place that serves Michelin-starred food, while never taking itself too seriously. A starter named simply "Ploughman's" proves to be a "chunky raviolo of pulled ham hock with a truffled cheesy sauce" – sitting on a heap of cubed sweet apple. Yorkshire pudding royale is "like a vision of all the most decadent meals you've eaten": the pudding comes piled with onions, veal juices, black truffle and pan-fried foie gras. Charming and a "bit absurd", the Star Inn is like something dreamed up by Richard Curtis: how wonderful that it actually exists.

Woven by Adam Smith

I'll admit that the mantra of this fine-dining restaurant in Berkshire – "Storytelling on a plate" – initially made me rather sceptical, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. "Storytelling" is a concept long abused in the corporate world; and here, it seemed to promise an afternoon "groaning with explanations". But my advice is to ignore the "guff" – and simply concentrate on Adam Smith's "wonderful" cooking. In his hands, jellied eels and coronation chicken are transformed from retro classics into sublime canapés. A "perfect mini pie of grouse" is served with a gravy of "outrageously fun largesse", while a "fabulous rectangle of turbot", topped with lobster and caviar, has its richness "tempered by oysterish salsify and salty sea purslane". I even find space for a "vast plate of English cheeses", washed down by a "game-changing" English pinot noir, recommended by the "excellent sommelier". In a room of Japanese minimalism, Smith has – through his cooking – "woven a fine fairy tale".

Squisito

The Needlemakers, in the East Sussex town of Lewes, is a "sort of shopping centre for pretty handmade things", says Tom Parker Bowles in the Daily Mail. And hidden inside it is this utterly charming family-run restaurant, which offers unfussy Italian food at "eminently reasonable" prices. Our lunch begins with "plumply fatty home-made Italian sausage, gently spiced", and arancini filled with 'nduja and "oozing mozzarella". There's "pert fresh linguine" slicked in "rich" carbonara, and exquisitely light gnocchi bathed in a "gently ovine" lamb ragù. Squisito is "the sort of neighbourhood restaurant that we all wish we had" – and a place where you'll definitely want to linger. It describes itself as "unauthentically Italian" – "but really, it's just authentically good".

The Hunan Man

"Be aware," says Jay Rayner in The Observer: this recently opened Hunanese restaurant in London's Fitzrovia is definitely not a place to go with friends who are easily scared. As they flick through the "pic-splattered menu", and take in the "boiled beef in sizzling chilli oil and the pig intestines offered three ways", they'll be consumed by "ever-rising panic". Finally, they'll reach the "dry-wok duck braised in beer, complete with head and bill" – and succumb to a full-blown panic attack. Best to "leave those people at home". Instead, bring friends who relish a culinary challenge. Chef JianRen Zhou specialises in"thigh-slapping, salt and chilli-boosted" dishes. Lamb ribs with cumin are first slow-cooked, so that the meat falls off the bone, and are then crusted in spice and fried until crispy: it makes for a "completely involving" dish. Diced chicken with chilli peppers – which we order on the recommendation of our waitress – proves to be the "best version of Chongqing chicken" I've ever had. This is a menu with "uncompromising depths", and to explore it properly you really need to come with a group of friends.

Sea Salt + Sole

This award-winning fish and chip shop next to Dyce train station, just outside Aberdeen, is admittedly "not much to look at", says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. But if you ever have a spare half-hour before catching your train (as my friend and I did recently en route to the Braemar Literary Festival), it's definitely worth a visit. From the "smiling, immaculate staff", we ordered a large haddock supper (the fish is sourced daily from sustainable suppliers), a battered smoked sausage, and a beef pie from a local butcher. The haddock was greaseless and "incandescently fresh". It wore its crisp, golden batter "like a silk slip", and came with lots of chips with exactly the right "ratio of crunch and squelch". The smoked sausage had "snap, smoke and succulence" – it was a "saveloy with a PhD in good taste" – and the pie was equally delicious. Wolfed down on a "hard plastic bench" on the station platform, our meal was, "quite simply, one of the finest things I've eaten for years".

Llama Inn

The South American dish ceviche – citrus-marinated fish – is something "I've never really taken to", says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. It has always struck me as an unconvincing "halfway between sashimi and cold fish soup". But a visit to this Peruvian restaurant, on the seventh floor of London's Hoxton Hotel, turned me into "a convert". The ceviche I was served here consisted of scallops in a condensed milk sauce with leche de tigre – a spicy, limey marinade – and "seaweedy crisps" scattered on top. In flavour and texture, it was "sensational". Nor was it the only stand-out dish. Crisp squid with potato-like yuca (cassava) was superb, as was a "triumphant" cabbage skewer, scatted with toasted quinoa and a chancaca (sugar cane) sauce. The sister of a "cult" restaurant of the same name in New York, Llama Inn is, in my opinion, the "best thing to come out of Peru since Paddington".

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Café François

This new restaurant in London's Borough Market is the "petite fille" of Maison François, a fabulous French restaurant in Mayfair renowned for its ornate dessert trolley, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. While Maison François is definitely an "occasion destination", Café François has more of an "all-day-canteen feel": you could as easily pop in for a coffee and a pastry as you could dine from its à la carte menu. The food, as at the "mothership", is delicious: from battered and deep-fried frogs' legs to a deeply flavoured monkfish vadouvan, everything we eat is prepared with care. For those prepared to "brave the bedlam" of the market, Café François will prove an essential "rendezvous point": I'll meet you there "on the first floor, with my onion soup gratinée and hiding behind a copy of Paris Match".

Pomus

The quality of a restaurant's food, I've often found, is "in inverse proportion to the beauty of the view", says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. This rule certainly applies to Pomus, a restaurant in a shopping centre in Margate. As the weather is fine, my companions and I sit outside, "chewing oily, crisp-crusted focaccia" as we watch the Saturday crowds shuffle by, visiting the likes of Peacocks and Subway. Soon, dishes start to arrive: there's a skewer of plump and well-spiced chicken hearts, as well as "softly robust" rounds of tongue lurking under a parsley and watercress salad. "But it's not all elegant offal." A dish of glorious pommes dauphinoise is served with saffron-stained aioli on the side. Coal-roasted sweet potatoes arrive in "great charred chunks", scattered with fried sage leaves and fermented chilli. "Hispi cabbage, also cooked in the embers, comes draped in lardo and sprinkled with bacon-spiked pangrattato." Our main is fish of the day: an "exquisitely cooked" lemon sole on the bone, topped with mussels in the shell and surrounded by "elegant beurre blanc". The kitchen here makes no mistakes as it "roams the globe with easy aplomb". With service that's "as warm as the early afternoon sun", Pomus is a delight.

1 York Place

This Clifton restaurant is the second Bristol venture from Freddy Bird, chef at the well-regarded Little French in Westbury Park, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. It's definitely a place to visit when you're hungry, since Bird is a cook who likes to "fill the plate to the very edge without recourse to daintiness or understatement". I opt for the exceedingly reasonable lunch and early-evening set- price menu, which offers three courses and a glass of wine for £29.50. "Moon-shaped squash fritters" come in a "shattering batter", and are drizzled with miel de cana (or sugar cane molasses); nestled between them are nuggets of ricotta. Next, impeccably cooked pork belly on a heap of nutty lentils, served with sweet-sour quince jelly and vividly purple kale. Pud is a "house brick of extremely adult tiramisu", its sponge layers "sodden with both site-specific Bristol Cream and enough espresso to stimulate a dozy sloth into bouts of calisthenics". While 1 York Place isn't exactly breaking the mould in Bristol – a city with a surfeit of great independent restaurants – it's still a delightful place to visit, and feels like a "redoubt" on a stormy autumn day.