Lancashire Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: This large, modern roadside outfit, just off the M6 near Preston, has established an enviable reputation for its “well cooked, authentic Indian food” over the last 15 years. “Pity it looks rather like a works canteen”. Important to note: it is alcohol free.

“Victor Yu has a quite brilliant menu and wine list”, say fans of his roadside Chinese, “stylishly” converted from a former boozer on the A59. “Folk travel from all over” – “there’s a party atmosphere in the bar and the fact it’s packed every service means they are doing something very right”.

2019 Review: “Back on form and deservedly popular” – this well-known, “comfortable” gastropub on the ‘Yellow Hills’ achieved more consistent ratings this year for it’s “mixture of pub classics, sharing boards and seasonal specials”. As our survey was concluding in May 2018, it was sold, along with its Ribble Valley Inn stablemates, to the Brunning & Price group.

“Completely consistent… they still do the best ever Pizza Napoletana” – this huge Italian ‘Ristorante & Pizzeria’ just outside Preston was opened in 1985 and has grown over the years to house 300 guests in one sitting, of whom about a third are in a striking glazed extension, complete with al fresco terrace.

“Simplicity” combines with “top quality” at Carlow-born Breda Murphy’s deli-restaurant, a popular destination in the Ribble Valley since 2006 for her Anglo-Irish home-style cooking. “At first it feels overly conservative, but every dish is perfectly cooked, often with a small and interesting twist such as thick-cut lime and soy-cured salmon.”

“Set in a quaint Ribble Valley village”, Steve Smith’s “delightful and traditional” destination “provides a slice of country refinement in a real, classic country pub” and holds its own against much of the stiff culinary competition in the area. His cuisine “continues to provide unusual combinations of exceptionally prepared dishes”, crafted from “unfailingly good quality ingredients”. You can stay, too, which fans say is “amazing” (“the breakfast is something else!”)

“In an area renowned for its pub food, this one stands out against more fancied opposition”, say fans of this Ribble Valley hostelry. “Great food, friendly service, wonderful value. This is what pub food and hospitality is supposed to be about.”

“Stosie Madi and her team draw folk for many miles to remote Newton-in-Bowland for some of the best and freshest dishes ever” note fans of this ever-more famous pub, in the Forest of Bowland: one of the most commented-on country destinations in our annual diners’ poll. “Even as a regular, it's getting hard to get a table given her seasonal and fabulous cooking: a combination of sheer simplicity, classic technique, and (if you're lucky) flavours from Madi’s Lebanese (etc) heritage”. “Her understanding of flavours is sublime… no wonder she’s knocking awards out like a fast lunch service!” “AJ runs the bar with a bewildered look of surprise and the punters love it.” Top Menu Tip – the pies.

“The indefatigable Beaume family put heart and art” into this “quirkily decorated boutique hotel and restaurant next to the toll bridge over the River Wyre”. It’s a “true gastropub” – “I’ve lunched in my jeans, I’ve dined in a dress, I’ve had beers at the bar and the welcome is the same” – and the “daily specials continue to be very reliable, while regular items like the oxtail pudding and French onion soup are things of hearty beauty”.

2021 Review: This “lovely gastropub in the pretty village of Downham, under the shadow of Pendle Hill” is part of Jocelyn Neve’s Seafood Pub Company – the interior has been “completely renovated”, but retains a proper atmosphere with its “roaring fires”. Views on its performance diverged a little last year: most reports suggest the “excellent fish and seafood is definitely worth going for”, but a couple of mixed reports (“good but not as good as it was”; “trying hard but no organisation”) sound a warning note.

“Hardly any further from Junction 33 of the M6 than Forton Services”: Craig Wilkinson’s “always popular”, “railway-side pub” has, say fans, “always unjustly sailed a little below the radar, while food and cooking continue in their accomplished, classically inspired, utterly satisfying way”. “In a time when so many places turn out Identikit dishes from the same playbook, it’s somehow refreshing to get a really good terrine, confit duck legs etc”. Top Menu Tip – “Meat is first class, the Sunday roast beef is the best ever: pink and melting in the mouth”.

“Every dish is sublime” – “a real joy” – at this “unpretentious pub” near Burnley with “fantastic cooking” from “brilliant” chef Tom Parker, who “learned his craft at local Northcote and now has a diary released three months at a time”. “It’s a one-hit menu each day depending on seasonality and his mood” – “not exclusively fish but the fish dishes are superb”. The whole operation, including co-owners Gareth & Laura Ostick, is “very clever” and represents “excellent value” – “it’s not really cheap, but much much cheaper than similar establishments of this class”.

2019 Review: “Ostensibly an Italian restaurant” – the Lioveri family’s fifteen-year-old fixture cooks “more in a modern British idiom” (although “there is a bit too much sous vide work, gels, foams and spherification to be really cutting edge”). “Apart from unnecessary modernist touches”, the “execution is excellent” and a meal far more “refined” than its unassuming exterior might suggest.

2022 Review: “Great food and also a sense that they are putting back into the community” inspires support for this pub-with-rooms on the village green. Run as a youth-focused social enterprise, supporting young people to access training and paid work experience, it has won a string of awards over its almost ten years in operation. In summer, its ‘Incredible Edible Beer Garden’ comes into its own: almost an acre in size and with lots of interest as well as outside seating.

2021 Review: “A top option on the Fylde coast” – Paul Moss and Caroline Upton’s well-established and jazzily decorated bar/restaurant near Blackpool only attracted limited feedback last year, but still good all-round.