The Guardian’s restaurant critic picks her 50 favourite restaurants in the UK, from a seaside pub in Kent that serves some of the best food on the planet to a Glasgow old-timer that’s a city institution
Asking me for my favourite restaurants is a bit like insisting I choose my favourite child: genuinely agonising. It’s a question I get asked on a weekly basis (the restaurant one, not the children) and, just as regularly, the answer will change. But for every different response, the reasons they’re my favourites remain the same. And it’s not because of cheffy showing off or experimentation, the perfection of the linen or the opulence of the decor. The key determinant is: would I go back? It surprises me how many times – even after a technically flawless meal – the answer to my own question is to shake my head: nope.
Restaurants are about far more than the cooking. (I’d never say I was a food critic; my job is restaurant reviewer.) In some of the restaurants on this list, the food isn’t the main draw by any stretch of the imagination. But would I go back tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that? Yes, please.
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