Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Liverpool
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Liverpool restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 40 restaurants in Liverpool and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Liverpool restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Liverpool Restaurants
1. Restaurant 8 by Andrew Sheridan
British, Modern restaurant in Liverpool
16 Cook Street - L2
Native Liverpudlian Andrew Sheridan upped sticks from Brum to relocate ‘8’ to a Victorian building in the city centre (next to the original Cavern Club) in April 2023. Seating is at one of two counters for, appropriately, eight diners; the lighting is low; much of the décor is black or slate-grey; and the level of ambition in the cooking is high, with the aim of delivering ‘an immersive sensory experience’. The eight courses (for £110 per head) are of very diverse inspiration and there’s also a wine pairing option (for £80 per head).
2. The London Carriage Works, Hope Street Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Liverpool
40 Hope Street - L1
“Superb food… comfortable surroundings, friendly but not obsequious staff, a very decent wine list, reasonable prices…” – this boutique hotel dining room (named after the original 1860 business that occupied the premises) was part of the early wave of culinary reinvention to hit ‘The Pool’ and opened in 2003. It’s often overlooked nowadays, but reports this year suggest unfairly so.
3. OXA
restaurant in Birkenhead
1 Rose Mount, Oxten - CH43
Fine dining in relaxed neighbourhood restaurant setting, Open in Oxton serves a sophisticated tasting menu with optional drinks pairing. Ingredients are locally-sourced and treated with respect. Diners enjoy a casual chef-led experience. ...
4. Salt House
Spanish restaurant in Liverpool
1 Hanover Street - L1
“Still serving great tapas with some influences from different countries” – this bright modern café opposite John Lewis is a well-known standby in the city, with the main drawback being that “the noise-level can be difficult at busy times”. Opened in 2010, it was the first peg in a local chain that nowadays incorporates Hanover Street Social, Bacaro and Bouchon.
5. Il Mulino Roby Mill
restaurant in Upholland
60 Roby Mill - WN8
An AA rosette award winning Italian restaurant nestled in the heart of the Lancashire countryside. Il Mulino serves high-quality produce from Lancashire farms and Italy.All of our meat, dairy & vegetables are grown or reared within a 30 mile ...
6. Nord
Scandinavian restaurant in Liverpool
The Plaza, 100 Old Hall Street - L3
“A strong new opening with great food!” – in a Sixties-tastic building that used to be the HQ for Littlewoods (once home to the football pools), Liverpudlian chef Daniel Heffy (ex-Secret Diners Club & Buyers Club) returned from Stockholm to helm this ambitious newcomer. It opened in April 2023 – rather late in the day to generate feedback in our annual diners’ poll – hence we’ve left it unrated, despite one very upbeat early-days report (and the Liverpool Echo and the Confidentials have both waxed lyrical about it).
7. Lawns Grill, Thornton Hall Hotel & Spa
International restaurant in Thornton Hough
Neston Rd - CH63
2023 Review: A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2019 when Boris Johnson and former Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, met for crunch post-Brexit talks at this posh hotel & spa out on the Wirral. On limited feedback, ratings for its grill are good all-round, but more plaudits go to the rather dramatically named ‘Great Wirral Afternoon Tea’ – a “well thought-out offering with good choice of sweet or savoury options” that’s “particularly nice on the terrace or lawn”.
8. Vetch
International restaurant in Liverpool city centre
29a Hope Street - L1
Vetch is a fine dining restaurant with a casual atmosphere serving great food accomanied with great service.Situated in the georian quarter of Liverpool in a beautiful grade 2 listed building with large windows offering plenty of light the restaurant is both modern an...
9. The GPO Food Hall
International restaurant in Liverpool
35 Whitechapel - L1
2022 Review: ‘General Post Office’ now means ‘Global Provisions Outlet’ at this repurposed edifice in the Metquarter – Liverpool's biggest food hall, with 11,000 square feet in which to graze, which opened in summer 2021 and aims to champion independent vendors by offering support and incubation. High-profile initial sign-ups included Nama from Sheffield's JORO – an izakaya-style offering.
10. Bundobust
Indian restaurant in Liverpool
17-19 Bold Street - L1
2022 Review: Born in 2019, a Liverpool branch of the Manchester- and Leeds-based street food chain that “specialises in Indian vegetarian food and craft beers. It’s always good, lively, and popular” and “very good value” too.
11. Mowgli
Indian restaurant in Liverpool
69 Bold St - L1
Ex-barrister Nisha Katona is nowadays one of the UK’s foremost restaurateurs on the success of her national chain, of which this “welcoming” and still mega-popular street-food café in a converted former bank was the original (and celebrates its tenth year in 2024). “Always a good choice for all the family: even the young ones will try the food here” – “a very different take on Indian food, including some Indo-Chinese dishes that don’t normally get much of an airing”. Top Menu Tips – “favourite items include Gunpowder Chicken, Maa’s Lamb Chops, Butter Chicken and House Lamb Curry… the cocktails are definitely worth trying too”.
12. Lunya
Spanish restaurant in Liverpool
55 Hanover Street - L1
Peter & Elaine Kinsella’s “fun” tapas bar has introduced a generation of Scouse foodies to the delights of Catalan cuisine over the past 15 years. “Sadly the Manchester branch was a victim of lockdown, but the original is still going strong”, along with its deli and Lunyalita offshoot in the Albert Dock.
13. The Italian Club Fish
Italian restaurant in Liverpool
128 Bold St - L1
A “long-standing, mainly fishy” sibling to The Italian Club, a stone’s throw away down shopping hub Bold Street, and blending the backgrounds of Puglia-born chef Maurizio Pellegrini and his Scottish partner Rosaria Crolla; the “busy” outfit “never ceases to produce tasty dishes” – be it seafood platters, battered oysters or their “super fish ’n’ chips”.
14. Six by Nico
International restaurant in Liverpool
11-15 North John Street - L2
Glasgow chef Nico Simeone’s distinctive concept has grown into a national chain with 11 restaurants (including Fitzrovia and Canary Wharf) in just six years, offering a quick-changing succession of themed six-course menus for under £50 a head. It’s widely seen as “fantastic value” and has a sizeable fanbase amongst reporters (“every six weeks, the menu renews and for me, it is something to look forward to…”; “we simply love it and we’ve yet to miss a menu!” – “the Tokyo menu was so good we went back a second time”). Only a tiny few say, “you can feel you’re on a conveyor belt with lots of upsells”; or that the whole thing is “a dystopia of where restaurants will evolve”.
15. Albert's Schenke
German restaurant in Liverpool
16 Hanover Street - L1
2021 Review: Sibling to Manchester’s popular Albert’s Schloss, this ‘bohemian bier halle and cook haus’ replaces The Hub Alehouse. It’s unlikely to be a hugely foodie destination, but – if we’re reading the runes correctly – it should be a good laugh with hearty scoff (schnitzel, burgers, raclette) to soak up some fine brews.
16. Wreckfish
British, Modern restaurant in Liverpool
60 Seel Street - L1
“Very good bistro cooking” and “amazing service” are turning Gary Usher’s six-year-old fixture into a “Liverpool institution”; and it’s become one of the best and best-known outlets in his Elite Bistros chain. But apparently he’s toying with the idea of changing the name of this 90-cover venue, because too many people think it just serves fish!
17. Roski
British, Modern restaurant in Liverpool
16 Rodney Street - L1
This “exquisite” venue from MasterChef: The Professionals winner Anton Piotrowski is “a must-visit if you’re in Liverpool” – and “worth a special visit to the city” if you’re not. In the evening, for £115 per person, they serve a seven-course course tasting menu only. One mightily impressed recent visitor, Daily Telegraph reviewer William Sitwell, reported that ‘the Lancashire haggis toastie was the most scrumptious thing I’ve eaten in ages’.
18. San Carlo
Italian restaurant in Liverpool
41 Castle St - L2
2022 Review: “Always busy and buzzing with conversation”, this “reliable upmarket resto in the business district of the city centre” – a link in the glitzy national Italian chain – wins solid marks for its “atmosphere, good-quality produce and cooking”.
19. Salt House Bacaro
Italian restaurant in Liverpool
47 Castle St - L2
2021 Review: “Italian small plates (this time)” “from the Salt House tapas stable” – win solid ratings for this “friendly, buzzy restaurant” from the Red & Blue team. It’s “great for a larger party”, with “seats at the bar good for dates”; “it’s crowded so you do get to hear your neighbours’ conversations – although in Liverpool that can be theatre”.
20. Pilgrim
Spanish restaurant in Liverpool
46 Duke Street - L1
2021 Review: BBC2’s ‘My Million Pound Menu’ winners Dave Bone (chef) Jamie Duffield (front of house), and Anthony Power opened this new venture in Duke Street Market (a revamped docklands warehouse) in spring 2019. The food offering is based on dishes found along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes in Spain, France and Portugal, and – though we received no survey feedback – it’s receiving a good rep generally (including from Michelin who awarded it a 2020 Bib Gourmand).
View full listings of 40 Liverpool Restaurants
Popular Liverpool Restaurant Searches
Liverpool Restaurant News