VSOP Award 2011

Best Rated Newcomer – London
Viajante

There has been some very good cooking in London in recent years, but the cuisine of the capital’s chefs has rarely been of note for its innovation. Not so with Nuno Mendes, a Portuguese chef who worked for a number of years with one of New York’s most celebrated (and innovative) chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The name of Mendes‘s new restaurant means ‘traveller’, and the cuisine at his new East End dining room richly reflects his own peregrinations, and a special magic all of his own too.

Runners Up
Mooli’s
Manson
Kitchen W8
Bistrot Bruno Loubet

Best Rated Newcomer – Rest of UK
Pea Porridge

This small restaurant in a modest-size market town is already making waves with the sheer consistency and quality of what it offers. It’s a family production, with Justin Sharp – a Scot whose cv includes a stint at the famously crowd-pleasing Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth – at the stove, and his Lithuanian wife Jurga front of- house. No set menu here. This is one of those restaurants which really has taken to heart the mantra of buying the finest produce of the moment, and turning it into the finest
dishes possible.

Runner Up
Tuscan Kitchen, Rye