Duffield, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“Pleasant old pub, with a modern dining room at the rear, in the Derbyshire countryside near Ashbourne”. “Very competent” cooking emerges from the kitchen of chef Gareth Ward, “including top-class fish (from the same source as sister establishment The Cow at Dalbury) – not often do you find both turbot and halibut on offer alongside good-quality local beef and lamb”.

Exceptional ratings were the norm this year in feedback on Alex Bond’s well-established foodie destination: “a beautiful, cavernous, low-lit” space occupying the Victorian brick-vaulted space that was once the coach house on the Park Estate. It’s “not cheap” of course, but provides a “brilliant night out” for which you can choose between a three-course à la carte menu at £75 per person or a seven-course tasting menu at £130 per person: “unusual flavours” but “fabulous food, and with the right level of interaction from staff”.

Sat & Amanda Bains’s converted motel sits on the fringes of the city, down a lane by the Trent amidst railway flyovers, electricity pylons and a small industrial estate. It’s not the lead-up you would expect to one of the nine restaurants outside of London with two Michelin stars. For an evening meal, choose either ten courses for £199 per person; or 15 for £275 per person; or, you can now book a shorter three-course experience at £145 per person in the Tasting Room or at The Kitchen Bench, rather than in the main dining room. Feedback here is overwhelmingly positive, accrediting the experience as “very inventive…”, “top-notch” and “with charming service front and back of house”. But while gripes about the prices are surprisingly few, the same could also be said about the number of diners reporting this as their best meal of the year, even while it is almost universally hailed as “exceptional all round”.

“An encouraging addition to the Nottingham restaurant scene” launched in 2022 in a canal-side location in the burgeoning Island Quarter. Launch chef Laurence Henry moved on in November 2023, and it is currently helmed by Himalayan-born chef Hira – a “smart venue with open kitchen” that turns out “well-executed and clever” (should that be cleaver?) food with “thankfully not a tasting menu in sight” – instead, a newly launched fixed evening menu (two courses £45/three courses £53) mirroring the format of lunch.