Nottingham, International Restaurant Guide

Near the castle, this long-serving stalwart occupies “comfortingly clubby surroundings” (seventeenth-century Newdigate House also hosts the Nottingham Club for the city’s business and professional community) and remains “a definite favourite” that “sometimes hits five stars”. Following the trend of over a decade, the kitchen is “wildly variable: some dishes can be wonderful, others poorly conceived and lacking in flavour”.

This “buzzy tapas bar”, in a “lovely vaulted-ceiling basement” in the Lace Market, serves “a tremendous variety” of “authentic Spanish dishes”. A “cheerful” fixture for more than 15 years, it’s “probably the first choice for tapas in the area” – and “you can have the menú del día for not much more than a tenner”. There is also a spin-off in Hockley.

2021 Review: An “extensive” and “interesting tapas menu” (plus a “very good-value lunch”) is the formula behind this relaxed but reliably busy spot.

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.”