Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Bath
Hardens guides have spent 30 years compiling reviews of the best Bath restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 72 restaurants in Bath and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Bath restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Bath Restaurants
1. The Bath Priory
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Weston Rd - BA1
“Wonderful food is amply delivered” at this posh country house hotel, riding high after the arrival of Michael Nizzero in January 2017, and where “a tour of the (“fab”) grounds by the head gardener following a meal makes for a perfect celebration and reason to return”; casual sister restaurant The Pantry is also worth a look.
2. The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Russell St - BA1
Chris Cleghorn’s “very classy and well-composed” cuisine maintains this well-known basement dining room as the town’s most accoladed foodie hotspot (it’s the only restaurant in town with a Michelin star) and he offers a variety of menus (with vegan and vegetarian options) focused in the evenings on tasting menu formats, although – unusually – they allow you to pick out individual dishes from them if you don’t want ‘the full monty’ and to pay per plate. The dining room itself is well-appointed and pleasant, but the constraints of this basement space are griped about even in the most favourable of reports (“tables close together…”, “room is a bit spartan for food of this quality…”).
3. The Scallop Shell
Fish & seafood restaurant in Bath
22 Monmouth Place - BA1
“Beautiful fresh fish cooked to perfection every time” hits the seafood sweet spot at this modern update of the traditional fish-and-chip restaurant, set across two floors in the town centre. The visual pun of a fresh fish display in an old Victorian bath dominates the dining room.
5. Colonna & Smalls
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Bath
6 Chapel Row - BA1
“Caffeine for connoisseurs served by enthusiastic baristas” – this Queen’s Square coffee shop from three-times UK barista champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood is a must for the aficionado. “Best coffee in Bath and so cool!”
6. Menu Gordon Jones
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
2 Wellsway - BA2
“Gordon Jones is expert in the flavours he can coax out of sometimes-modest ingredients” and his ‘surprise’, no-choice tasting menu of “well-coordinated and beautifully presented” dishes makes his “small but sweet” venue (in a somewhat “ordinary location”, just outside the town centre) into “a foodie’s temple of joy!”. “Quirky but worth a detour”.
7. The Circus
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
34 Brock St - BA1
“In a tourist town littered with chain restaurants”, this “lovely neighbourhood spot” is “one of the more reliable choices” locally (especially for fish) – and it’s “surprisingly affordable given its prestigious location next to the famous circus”.
8. Eight
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
3 North Parade Passage - BA1
On one of the super-cutest pedestrian cut-throughs of this gorgeous town (near Sally Lunn’s), this “lovely” new townhouse hotel (named for its eight bedrooms) opened in August 2018, and was one of the most talked-about arrivals of last year in these parts. Chef Fred Lavault offers “very enjoyable modern cuisine in a small plates format” from a “simple 8-8-8 menu that’s excellent and well-presented”.
9. The White Hart Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Widcombe Hill - BA2
“Bath’s best-kept secret” – this gastropub-with-rooms (great value) and a sheltered garden wins consistently strong ratings for its hearty good food.
10. Acorn Vegetarian Kitchen
Vegetarian restaurant in Bath
2 North Parade Passage - BA1
“Now fully vegan, but you wouldn’t know – everything is so brilliantly created”: this upmarket venture, super-cutely located in the city-centre, remains one of the UK’s top non-meat destinations and is “worth a special trip” for its “exquisite” and “innovative” cooking (not least the “sublime” five-course tasting menu).
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