Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Duffield
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Duffield restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 39 restaurants in Duffield and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Duffield restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Duffield Restaurants
1. The Horseshoes Long Lane
British, Modern restaurant in Ashbourne
Long Lane - DE6
“A lovely (if small) bar and outside space” add to the appeal of this “nice old pub in the middle of nowhere but set in a pleasant Derbyshire Dales setting”. Run by chef Gareth Ward (a namesake of the chef-patron at Ynyshir in Wales), it offers “a good modern menu” with beer-battered haddock about the only dish on the menu that might qualify as ‘pub grub’.
2. Kottaram
Indian restaurant in Nottingham City Centre
28 Maid Marian Way - NG1
As the name itself implies, “Kottaram“, means castle in one of the Indian languages- Malayalam.As per the Indian Classic epic “The Mahabharata” back in the 12th Century BC, there lived a pow...
3. The Fork & Furrow
British, Modern restaurant in Alfreton
The White Hart Inn, Inns Lane, Moorwood Moor - DE55
After undergoing a £50,000 renovation in March 2023, The White Hart Inn restaurant became brand new restaurant concept – The Fork & Furrow.The expertly designed menus offer culinary experiences to surprise the senses, partnering with local suppliers to...
4. Stones
British, Modern restaurant in Matlock
1C Dale Rd - DE4
Kevin Stone (the chef), wife Jade and sister Katie Temple provide “very good cooking and service” at this converted pub, whose glazed dining room, opening onto an outside terrace, makes the most of its “lovely setting” overlooking the River Derwent. Despite the heritage of the building, the menu – with a tasting option – is restaurant-style fare, not pub grub.
5. Jack Rabbits
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Ashbourne
10 Saint John Street - DE6
2022 Review: At the back of The Greenman retail and entertainment complex, this stylishly designed venue – with quirky angled roof and steel-and-glass frontage – is worth knowing about as a useful all-day option.
6. Bar Gigi
Italian restaurant in Nottingham
15 Flying Horse Walk - NG1
On the first floor at the 14th-century Flying Horse Walk building, complete with beams and stained-glass windows, this offbeat venue was inspired by Milan’s Fashion Week, and imports Italian tapas into a space above Gigi Bottega boutique. It’s entering its third year of operation: too limited feedback for a full review but such as we have on its small plates and low-intervention wines is promising.
7. The Duncombe Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Ellastone
Main Rd - DE6
An “absolute gem just north of Uttoxeter” – this rather glamorous peak District venture is “the local we all wish we had”, to quote The Daily Mail’s Tom Parker Bowles; “the tarte Tatin alone is worth the visit” but the modern British menu (more casual in the bar) also features “excellent dishes such as omelette Arnold Bennett and crispy belly pork” and their rooms are “brilliant” if you stay overnight.
8. Hart’s Kitchen
British, Modern restaurant in Nottingham
Standard Hill, Park Row - NG1
When the original venue of this name opened in 1997 in a different location, it became a modern British icon (Times critic Jonathan Meades was a major fan) and there‘s a pool of goodwill towards Tim Hart’s (of Rutland’s Hambleton Hall) hotel brasserie, which relocated to his nearby boutique hotel in 2019. Fans say “it is heartening to see the place getting busier with each passing year since the downsizing, as service is impeccable and the kitchen can produce some lovely food”. Even they, though, can find the menu too “mainstream” or “frustratingly samey” nowadays or results “run of the mill”. But they say “nonetheless, this is a cherished neighbourhood option”.
9. The Cow Dalbury
Fish & seafood restaurant in Ashbourne
The Green, Dalbury Lees - DE6
“It’s nowhere near the sea, but they have great suppliers” and this handsome 19th-century Peak District village pub (fka The Black Cow) six miles from Derby is now a boutique inn (with six bedrooms) where Cornish-born chef, Nathan Senior, specialises in fresh seafood delivered daily from his home county. “They also do a fantastic steak. All round a perfect pub for a meal and stopover”.
10. Darleys
British, Modern restaurant in Derby
Darley Abbey Mill - DE22
2021 Review: This “old mill overlooking the river and weir” – part of the Darley Abbey Mills World Heritage site on the Derwent – has an “interesting menu and consistently high-quality cooking”. “Lunch here is always a pleasure, thanks to its setting, space and service as much as its food”.
11. Ebi Sushi
Japanese restaurant in Derby
59 Abbey St - DE22
“Continuing to provide high-quality Japanese food, if a bit limited in range, for very reasonable prices in something resembling a Tokyo cafe but in the middle of the north Midlands ... Why? It’s just down the road from the Toyota factory!”
12. Anoki
Indian restaurant in Derby
Old Picture Hall, 129 London Road - DE1
“Great food served by very helpful staff” has attracted a busy crowd for more than 20 years to Naveed Khaliq’s flagship, a stylishly converted former picture palace with a gilded vaulted ceiling. A well-known name for good-quality Indian cuisine in the north Midlands, it now has offshoots in Nottingham and Burton.
13. The Saracen's Head
British, Modern restaurant in Shirley
Church Lane - DE6
2021 Review: “Really pleasing food”, “very good service” and a “lovely location” have earned plaudits over many years from the locals for Robin Hunter’s Derby Dales village gastropub, which has recently added the Church Lane Deli to its attractions.
14. La Rock
French restaurant in Sandiacre
4 Bridge Street - NG10
2023 Review: With its untreated oak tables, black granite surfaces and antler candelabras, chef-patron Nick Gillespie’s unusual and “very quiet” venue makes an appropriate showcase for his distinctive modern British cooking, which provided some reporters’ best meal of the year. “Staff cannot do enough for you.”
15. The Cod's Scallops
Fish & seafood restaurant in Wollaton
170 Bramcote Ln - NG8
“About as good as fish ’n’ chips gets” – some 20 varieties of catch come ‘baked, battered or naked’ at John Molnar’s award-winning restaurant and takeaway, now with five outposts across Nottingham and Birmingham; nor is the venue, launched in 2011, just a mere chippie either: alongside sashimi-grade tuna, the menu offers the vegetarian ‘Momma Bains’ menu of samosas and curries, conceived by local Michelin hero Sat Bains plus his ma (hence its name).
16. The Lighthouse Restaurant
International restaurant in Ashbourne
New Road, Boylestone - DE6
2022 Review: Over a decade on, this fine dining spot “sitting at the back of the Rose and Crown plum in the middle of nowhere” is “a revelation” to some reporters, “trying too hard” for others. The “regularly changing tasting menu” (the only option, coming with or without wine flights) is “getting even better, if anything”.
17. Cafe Roya
Vegetarian restaurant in Nottingham
130 Wollaton Rd - NG9
“Amazingly creative vegan and vegetarian food” continues to win raves for this fixture by chef Roya Bishop, who did time at Hansa’s restaurant in Leeds, before finessing her style alongside Michelin-starred chef Sat Bains; the food is so “deeply satisfying” that even non-veggies “never fail to be stunned” by a visit.
18. The Frustrated Chef
International restaurant in Nottingham
90-94 Chilwell Road, Beeston - NG9
2021 Review: An “extensive” and “interesting tapas menu” (plus a “very good-value lunch”) is the formula behind this relaxed but reliably busy spot.
19. Victoria Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Nottingham
Dovecote Ln - NG9
2022 Review: A “long-standing favourite”, this “brisk and friendly” red-brick late-Victorian boozer serves a “splendid range of beers” and a solid food menu[e]. One great fan and regular, though, feels “the dining room feels utilitarian and a little underwhelming compared to the bar”.
20. Five Guys
Burgers, etc restaurant in Nottingham
Nottingham Showcase, Redfield Way - NG7
2021 Review: “When all you want is an old-school burger”, these US-based arrivals of recent years really “hit the spot” – you can “build your own”, with “tons of accessories”; plus “seriously addictive fries”, “thick milkshakes”, and “more soda flavours than is reasonable”. “The eat-in experience is as depressing as McDonald’s”, though, in fact perhaps more so – “some branches have a strangely gloomy ambience” – but fans feel that “if you don’t mind 1980s-rock, a trip can still be surprisingly fun”.
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