Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Bath
Hardens guides have spent 31 years compiling reviews of the best Bath restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 69 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 Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Russell St - BA1
“Excellent in all respects” – nothing but upbeat reports this year on Chris Cleghorn’s well-known and much accoladed basement dining room: the only Bath restaurant with a Michelin star and with a long history as a foodie Mecca. The dining focus here is on the six-course and nine-course tasting menus, but if you just want to pay a visit they do serve breakfast and a simpler lunch. Nothing but praise too this year for its basement quarters, which fans say are “perfect for a special celebration”.
2. Green Park Brasserie
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Green Park Station - BA1
“Good value, reasonable food at a reasonable price in a decent setting with good staff” – the straightforward and upbeat formula that earns a listing for this ‘casual dining steakhouse and jazz bar’, which occupies a converted Victorian station.
3. The Scallop Shell
Fish & seafood restaurant in Bath
22 Monmouth Place - BA1
“Brilliant fish ’n’ chips served crisp and hot” is all you could wish for at this posh chippie, set across two floors in the town centre. But you can take it up a notch by ordering “reasonably priced white wine and oysters to start with, for a delicious dinner”. “Fresh fish is chosen from an antique bath; and includes crab, mussels, john dory and the usual cod or haddock – all cooked fresh to order”. Top Menu Tip: “the tartar sauce is to die for!”.
4. Dough
Pizza restaurant in Bath
14-16 The Corridor - BA1
2021 Review: The USP of this “very relaxed” yet “lively” Bath pizzeria is the ability to choose your dough as well as the topping on your pizza; not just regular and gluten-free, they also offer hemp, seaweed, black rice and turmeric bases, plus distinctly adventurous toppings (“who knew pistachios on a pizza could be so amazing?!”). A Bristol branch opened in March 2019.
5. Chez Dominique
French restaurant in Bath
15 Argyle Street - BA2
This weir-view five-year-old has built up a considerable local fanclub for its modern European cooking, showcased through keenly priced set menus (2 courses £22, 3 courses £26). Owners Chris Tabbitt and Sarah Olivier met while they were working at the Old Bridge hotel in Huntingdon – Chris as head chef and Sarah as reception manager, and named this restaurant after their son.
6. The Ivy Bath Brasserie
British, Traditional restaurant in Bath
39 Milsom St - BA1
“A buzz of conversation and music at just the right volume creates a very good atmosphere”, say fans of this outpost of the well-known chain, which wins higher ratings than most of its siblings. That said, it does sometimes inspire similar gripes: “former London celeb-magnet is proliferating as fast as a hamburger chain… the food is certainly nothing superior – nothing wrong with it as far a chain restaurant food goes, but vastly overpriced”.
7. The Pump Room
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Stall Street - BA1
Taking afternoon tea in this “wonderful Georgian setting with a trio playing during the meal” – and the Roman baths next door – is to wallow in English history, with literary visitors from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens as your guides. The nibbles – “beetroot-cured smoked salmon with homemade blini”, perhaps – are a secondary consideration, “but well worth having!”.
8. Eight
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
3 North Parade Passage - BA1
Feedback is limited but remains enthusiastic for this “very welcoming” dining room – part of a relatively new townhouse hotel, in one of Bath’s cuter pedestrianised enclaves (and occupying a house dating back to the 1400s). “The menu is well thought out, changes often, is enjoyable, and caters well to veggies and non-veggies alike”.
9. Clayton's Kitchen
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
15a George St - BA1
This tightly packed city-centre restaurant celebrates its tenth anniversary this year (on a site some oldies still recall as ‘Hole in the Wall’). “Rob Clayton is a brilliant chef”, say fans (he came to Bath to head the kitchen at the luxury Bath Priory Hotel for seven successful years before launching under his own name). Ratings, though, are middling on account of those who rate the value equation here good rather than exceptional.
10. Colonna & Smalls
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Bath
6 Chapel Row - BA1
The “best coffee EVER” awaits at three-time UK barista champ Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood's Queen’s Square coffee shop – and it’s “so cool” too (down to the limited-release ‘drops’ of speciality coffees, mimicking the tactics of hipster sportswear brands). Minor quibble: “they should improve the pastry section” so as to match the sips.
11. Corkage (Chapel Row)
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
5 Chapel Row - BA1
“The range of wine is astonishing, and the staff knowledgeable” at this congenial operation: “really more a wine bar with food, rather than a restaurant” but where “the simple fare tastes great”. You can also buy to take away at the adjoining wine shop. (There was a Walcot Road sibling, but this is no more).
12. The Elder at The Indigo Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
2 South Parade - BA2
“A good addition to the Bath food scene” – Mike Robinson’s 2020 opening is rated as one of the better performers in his growing partnership with the Indigo hotel chain. “Excellent game dishes and really top-notch cooking generally” are produced from a fairly traditional British menu overseen by chef Gavin Edney which puts a focus on fish as well as Mike’s trademark meaty fare. “Lovely surroundings” too in a stunning 166-bedroom property following a multi-million-pound renovation that combined multiple Grade I and Grade II listed townhouses.
13. Noya's Kitchen
Vietnamese restaurant in Bath
7 Saint James's Parade - BA1
“Incredibly delicious, highly flavoured Vietnamese food on a different level to the norm. Fabulous!”. “This is a lovely little restaurant with exceptional food” – and with a backstory to match: Noya Pawlyn left Vietnam at the age of seven and began cooking for her younger siblings in a refugee camp in Hong Kong while her parents went out to work. She opened her supper club/cookery school/cafe in 2017, and now it is at the forefront of the city’s food scene. “During lockdowns only, Noya & family have raised our spirits with fantastic takeaway food and it’s now a pleasure to return to her lovely restaurant & garden. Superb!”.
14. The Beckford Bottle Shop
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
5-8 Saville Row - BA1
A “lovely” three-year-old where you dine “surrounded by beautiful bottles of wine that the owners handpick to go with the small plates” of modern British food, cheese and charcuterie. “The wine list (250+ options) is amazing and the staff are clearly passionate about it”, with some “really unusual choices” on offer.
15. The Circus
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
34 Brock St - BA1
“An ever-dependable restaurant” amidst the sea of tourist traps blighting this genteel town, this “good-value” indie offers “first-class” modern European grub “with knowledgeable and attentive service to go with it”.
16. The White Hart Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Widcombe Hill - BA2
2021 Review: “Bath’s best-kept secret” – this gastropub-with-rooms (great value) and a sheltered garden wins consistently strong ratings for its hearty good food.
17. The Mint Room
Indian restaurant in Bath
Longmead Gospel Hall, Lower Bristol Rd - BA2
2019 Review: In a slightly utilitarian setting next to a Sainsbury’s petrol station and en route to Brizzle, this swish Indian serves some “beautiful food”.
18. Menu Gordon Jones
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
2 Wellsway - BA2
It's all about the “seven-course tasting menu (£70), not too heavy and a complete secret until they bring out the food and tell you about it” at chef Gordon Jones’s “friendly”, intimate venue, outside the town centre, and animated by “lots of cheerful banter” from the staff; “we have lived in Bath for 15 years, and are complete foodies, so why has it taken us so long to get here?!”.
19. Hare & Hounds
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Lansdown Road - BA1
2019 Review: “A busy and useful gastropub near the Lansdowne Park and Ride”, and bolstered by chic interiors as well as ten-mile views over the countryside (walks start right from the door); “great staff” and “amazing” locally sourced food courtesy of a new chef continue to cement its appeal.
20. The Bath Priory
British, Modern restaurant in Bath
Weston Rd - BA1
Always a “lovely setting for a special meal”, this posh country-house hotel dining room is thriving under head chef Jauca Catalin, a former professional footballer in his native Romania who worked under the great Michael Caines at Bath Priory ten years ago and returned to the top post when Michael Nizzero left in 2020 – having “set a high bar to match”. Jauca has succeeded in spades, with “particularly good fish and meat offerings” – “even eating here four nights in a row with four lunches, we never got bored and enjoyed every dish”. The dining room is also “booked out for weeks on end” for its “magnificent” afternoon teas, whose “sandwiches and cakes served on cake stands look a picture and taste divine”.
View full listings of 69 Bath Restaurants
Popular Bath Restaurant Searches
Bath Restaurant News