Best of the Best: Restaurants

After several weeks of research, trawling through the burgeoning list of guides and awards featuring restaurants seen as the best across the UK, Eat Out has selected its own ultimate top 100. Emma Page carried out the research.

This is it – Eat Out has scored its own exclusive century. Our final selection of the country’s best 100 restaurants is listed across the next 15 pages highlighting the sought-after venues and the finest food being served by the crème de la crème of chef brigades.

Up until the 1960s, eating out in Britain was never really regarded as a serious pastime and then, ironically, it was the two French Roux brothers who began the revolution over the next decade when dining establishments rightfully gained a name for their quality offerings.

This began in London, now competing with worldwide gastronomic centres such as Sydney in Australia and Chicago in the United States, but now all the UK’s major cities have their own foodie following.

And our home-grown chefs now compete neck and neck with those coming to our shores from across the world, and the British Michelin star, once a rare commodity, has now been bestowed on dining outlets in the farthest reaches of our islands.

But it is not just Michelin that has been at the forefront of industry awards for many years, as an ever widening range of organisations, publishers and associations have all  created their own style of accolades, recognising the very best the country has to offer.

So these are the bodies that Eat Out has researched in a bid to find the venues that our readers consider worthy of recognition.

In our attempts to find the best, we have scoured the internet, thumbed through every restaurant guide, carried out our own canvassing, while also looking at regional and local newspapers, trade publications and any other body presenting awards to favourite restaurants.

These establishments were awarded one point for every accolade received in 2008/09 and we have taken into account any Michelin stars – seen as the peak achievement – whenever they were gained.

Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck at Bray tops the list while last year’s winner Restaurant Gordon Ramsay has dropped to seventh place with Tom Kitchin’s The Kitchin in Edinburgh coming in at Number Two. Another rising star in the third place is Michael Wignall at the Latymer, Pennyhill Park Hotel & The Spa, Bagshot, Surrey.

2009 SOURCES SEARCHED:

Michelin Great Britain & Ireland
Good Food Guide
East of England Tourism
AA Restaurant Guide
Zagat London Restaurants
Square Meal
Observer
Decanter Magazine
Leicestershire & Rutland Restaurant Awards
Time Out London
Remy Martin Awards
Scottish Restaurant Awards
The Independent
Les Routiers
Tastes of Anglia
Taste of Kent
Flavours of Herefordshire
London Food & Drink Awards
Taste of the West
Craft Guild of Chefs Awards
Caterer & Hotelkeeper Catey Awards
Eat Sheffield
Eat Out magazine
Hardens Restaurant Guide
Coventry/Warwickshire Food & Drink Awards
Evening Standard Visit London Award

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