XO Excellence Award 2012

Best All-Round Restaurant – London
Le Gavroche

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this London institution. More than 40 years after it first opened its doors (at a different address), it remains the case that the 'family trees', so to speak, of most major chefs wend their way back to this Mayfair legend. Now led by Michel Roux Jr., son of founder Albert, the restaurant remains an unashamed bastion of Gallic classicism. As the award confirms, the old ways can still be the best ways!

Runners Up
The Ledbury
The Ritz
Chez Bruce
Min Jiang

Best All-Round Restaurant – Rest of UK
Gidleigh Park, Chagford

This grand country house may have an idyllic location on the fringe of Dartmoor, but it’s Michael Caines’s cooking that has really put it on the map. Michael is a ‘local boy’, trained in Exeter, and subsequently worked with some of the greats – including Raymond Blanc at Great Milton, and the late Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu – before becoming head chef at Gidleigh in 1994. He has subsequently gone into partnership with Andrew Brownsord (originally of greeting card fame) to establish the ABode hotel chain, each of whose outposts has a Michael Caines restaurant.

Runners Up
Waterside Inn, Bray
Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, Great Milton
Mr Underhill's, Ludlow
Restaurant Martin Wishart, Edinburgh