Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Guildford
Hardens guides have spent 31 years compiling reviews of the best Guildford restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 27 restaurants in Guildford and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Guildford restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Guildford Restaurants
1. The Shore
Fish & seafood restaurant in Penzance
13-14 Alverton Street - TR18
“A must for fish lovers” – “one-man-band Bruce Rennie serves up imaginative dishes with the freshest of Cornish fish, caught just a short distance away in Newlyn”. The set meals are served with a ‘supper club vibe’, admission by ticket only, fully paid in advance.
2. Driftwood Hotel
International restaurant in Rosevine
“Views are lovely” at this clifftop boutique hotel on the Roseland Peninsula where chef, Olly Pierrepoint, produces a wide range of menus. At dinner the main choice is between the set meal for £65 (for three courses) or a more ambitious seven-course taster menu for £85 per person. One reporter felt results were “decent but with no fireworks”, but that was the least enthusiastic account, and fans feel the cuisine here is “very good”.
3. Porthminster Café
Mediterranean restaurant in St Ives
Porthminster Beach - TR26
“Excellent food, outstanding views” – the tenor of all reports these days on this well-known local pitstop, buoyed by a “fabulous setting on the beach” just below the Tate; it's “ideal for long lunches” (with your canine if you sit on the terrace) which are often based around fish.
4. Porthgwidden Beach Café
Fish & seafood restaurant in The Island, St Ives
Porthgwidden Beach - TR26
2018 Review: “Facing east, so perfect for breakfast” – this café right on the beach has fine views. For more substantial fare however, it’s not the fave rave it once was.
5. The Black Rock
British, Modern restaurant in St Ives
Market Pl - TR26
2018 Review: “Über-fresh fish and shellfish feature large” on the menu of this “small but stylish and tidy” town-centre bistro; “the head chef really knows his ingredients” and “shows them at their best” – though the “clinical” vibe “can’t compete for ambience with the best of St Ives”.
6. Porthminster Kitchen
British, Modern restaurant in St Ives
Wharf Rd - TR26
Good news for chef Ben Prior, who has bounced back from his award-winning Ben's Cornish Kitchen, in Marazion, going into voluntary liquidation. He’s now helming the stoves at this harbourside venture known for its “good” food and location (even if the “ambience doesn’t match the sister beach restaurants” – e.g. Porthminster Café and Porthgwidden).
7. Porthmeor Beach Cafe
Spanish restaurant in St Ives
Porthmeor Beach - TR26
“Great views from the beachside terrace and an interesting fishy menu” have made this tapas-style venture “a definite must-go”, especially when visiting the nearby Tate. (As of 2019, they also run seasonal spin-off West Beach Bakery, on the western side of Porthmeor Beach, and serving up “great pizzas”, deli-style lunches and “even better views” than the original… and it's “less busy” too).
8. Victoria Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Perranuthnoe
Beautifully placed just off the SW Coast Path near St Michael's Mount, this atmospheric twelfth-century inn (dogs and muddy boots welcome in the bar) offers some “perfectly cooked” and “well-presented” grub (not least Sunday lunch), and seems to be going strong despite the departure of former chef Nik Boyle. Take advantage of the “comfortable” rooms to linger over a “great” pre-hike breakfast come morning.
9. No. 27 The Terrace
restaurant in St Ives
The Terrace - TR26
Ben Prior relocated to St Ives after 10 years in Marazion at the highly rated Ben’s Cornish Kitchen (RIP), and in May 2021 he helped re-open the dining room at this small hotel overlooking Porthminster Beach (at whose cafe he’s now head chef) having installed Grant Nethercote as head chef. Reports please!
10. Source Kitchen
Fish & seafood restaurant in St Ives
6 The Digey - TR26
A tranquil café on a pretty street that’s beloved by Rick Stein, who featured it in one of his many TV shows. Snack on home-baked cakes and biscuits, enjoy “lots of fish dishes” (including some “unusual options”) for lunch, or – by night – “amazing small plates served up from the small open kitchen” (you can sit at the bar for a particularly “great view” of the chefs at work).
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