Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Ripley
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Ripley restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 40 restaurants in Ripley and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Ripley restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Ripley Restaurants
1. The Bulls Head
British, Modern restaurant in Holymoorside
New Road - S42
Mark Aisthorpe again wins consistent feedback (if not a huge volume of it) for his Peak District pub (the accommodation has five AA stars), where he presides over a kitchen providing a high standard of cooking at very reasonable prices: the five-course lunchtime and early evening menu is £35 and the eight-course option is £80. (There are also à la carte and Sunday lunch options).
2. The Horseshoes Long Lane
British, Modern restaurant in Ashbourne
Long Lane - DE6
“A lovely (if small) bar and outside space” add to the appeal of this “nice old pub in the middle of nowhere but set in a pleasant Derbyshire Dales setting”. Run by chef Gareth Ward (a namesake of the chef-patron at Ynyshir in Wales), it offers “a good modern menu” with beer-battered haddock about the only dish on the menu that might qualify as ‘pub grub’.
3. The Cow Dalbury
Fish & seafood restaurant in Ashbourne
The Green, Dalbury Lees - DE6
“It’s nowhere near the sea, but they have great suppliers” and this handsome 19th-century Peak District village pub (fka The Black Cow) six miles from Derby is now a boutique inn (with six bedrooms) where Cornish-born chef, Nathan Senior, specialises in fresh seafood delivered daily from his home county. “They also do a fantastic steak. All round a perfect pub for a meal and stopover”.
4. Stones
British, Modern restaurant in Matlock
1C Dale Rd - DE4
Kevin Stone (the chef), wife Jade and sister Katie Temple provide “very good cooking and service” at this converted pub, whose glazed dining room, opening onto an outside terrace, makes the most of its “lovely setting” overlooking the River Derwent. Despite the heritage of the building, the menu – with a tasting option – is restaurant-style fare, not pub grub.
5. The Fork & Furrow
British, Modern restaurant in Alfreton
The White Hart Inn, Inns Lane, Moorwood Moor - DE55
After undergoing a £50,000 renovation in March 2023, The White Hart Inn restaurant became brand new restaurant concept – The Fork & Furrow.The expertly designed menus offer culinary experiences to surprise the senses, partnering with local suppliers to...
6. Kottaram
Indian restaurant in Nottingham City Centre
28 Maid Marian Way - NG1
As the name itself implies, “Kottaram“, means castle in one of the Indian languages- Malayalam.As per the Indian Classic epic “The Mahabharata” back in the 12th Century BC, there lived a pow...
7. Hart’s Kitchen
British, Modern restaurant in Nottingham
Standard Hill, Park Row - NG1
When the original venue of this name opened in 1997 in a different location, it became a modern British icon (Times critic Jonathan Meades was a major fan) and there‘s a pool of goodwill towards Tim Hart’s (of Rutland’s Hambleton Hall) hotel brasserie, which relocated to his nearby boutique hotel in 2019. Fans say “it is heartening to see the place getting busier with each passing year since the downsizing, as service is impeccable and the kitchen can produce some lovely food”. Even they, though, can find the menu too “mainstream” or “frustratingly samey” nowadays or results “run of the mill”. But they say “nonetheless, this is a cherished neighbourhood option”.
8. Bar Gigi
Italian restaurant in Nottingham
15 Flying Horse Walk - NG1
On the first floor at the 14th-century Flying Horse Walk building, complete with beams and stained-glass windows, this offbeat venue was inspired by Milan’s Fashion Week, and imports Italian tapas into a space above Gigi Bottega boutique. It’s entering its third year of operation: too limited feedback for a full review but such as we have on its small plates and low-intervention wines is promising.
9. Nonna’s
Italian restaurant in Chesterfield
131 Chatsworth Road - S40
2022 Review: Limited feedback on this ten-year-old Italian, with a wide-ranging menu, but it’s tipped in particular for its pizza.
10. Jack Rabbits
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Ashbourne
10 Saint John Street - DE6
2022 Review: At the back of The Greenman retail and entertainment complex, this stylishly designed venue – with quirky angled roof and steel-and-glass frontage – is worth knowing about as a useful all-day option.
11. Darleys
British, Modern restaurant in Derby
Darley Abbey Mill - DE22
2021 Review: This “old mill overlooking the river and weir” – part of the Darley Abbey Mills World Heritage site on the Derwent – has an “interesting menu and consistently high-quality cooking”. “Lunch here is always a pleasure, thanks to its setting, space and service as much as its food”.
12. Ebi Sushi
Japanese restaurant in Derby
59 Abbey St - DE22
“Continuing to provide high-quality Japanese food, if a bit limited in range, for very reasonable prices in something resembling a Tokyo cafe but in the middle of the north Midlands ... Why? It’s just down the road from the Toyota factory!”
13. Anoki
Indian restaurant in Derby
Old Picture Hall, 129 London Road - DE1
“Great food served by very helpful staff” has attracted a busy crowd for more than 20 years to Naveed Khaliq’s flagship, a stylishly converted former picture palace with a gilded vaulted ceiling. A well-known name for good-quality Indian cuisine in the north Midlands, it now has offshoots in Nottingham and Burton.
14. La Rock
French restaurant in Sandiacre
4 Bridge Street - NG10
2023 Review: 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.”
15. The Cod's Scallops
Fish & seafood restaurant in Wollaton
170 Bramcote Ln - NG8
“About as good as fish ’n’ chips gets” – some 20 varieties of catch come ‘baked, battered or naked’ at John Molnar’s award-winning restaurant and takeaway, now with five outposts across Nottingham and Birmingham; nor is the venue, launched in 2011, just a mere chippie either: alongside sashimi-grade tuna, the menu offers the vegetarian ‘Momma Bains’ menu of samosas and curries, conceived by local Michelin hero Sat Bains plus his ma (hence its name).
16. Cafe Roya
Vegetarian restaurant in Nottingham
130 Wollaton Rd - NG9
“Amazingly creative vegan and vegetarian food” continues to win raves for this fixture by chef Roya Bishop, who did time at Hansa’s restaurant in Leeds, before finessing her style alongside Michelin-starred chef Sat Bains; the food is so “deeply satisfying” that even non-veggies “never fail to be stunned” by a visit.
17. The Frustrated Chef
International restaurant in Nottingham
90-94 Chilwell Road, Beeston - NG9
2021 Review: An “extensive” and “interesting tapas menu” (plus a “very good-value lunch”) is the formula behind this relaxed but reliably busy spot.
18. Alchemilla
British, Modern restaurant in Nottingham
192 Derby Road - NG7
“There is a real buzz to this serious foodie venue near central Nottingham” where an “energetic team of chefs deliver a top gastronomic experience” with a “high, Michelin-starred standard of innovation and flavour”. Occupying a converted former Victorian coach house on the Park Estate with brick-vaulted rooms: “once inside, it has a cellar-like vibe that certainly distinguishes it from other culinary destinations in the area”. Sat Bains alumnus Alex Bond focuses on a tasting menu format with five courses for £95 per person and seven courses for £120 per person: “the selection is long on interesting ingredients, and the wine pairings very diverse and excellent”.
19. Victoria Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Nottingham
Dovecote Ln - NG9
2022 Review: A “long-standing favourite”, this “brisk and friendly” red-brick late-Victorian boozer serves a “splendid range of beers” and a solid food menu[e]. One great fan and regular, though, feels “the dining room feels utilitarian and a little underwhelming compared to the bar”.
20. Five Guys
Burgers, etc restaurant in Nottingham
Nottingham Showcase, Redfield Way - NG7
2021 Review: “When all you want is an old-school burger”, these US-based arrivals of recent years really “hit the spot” – you can “build your own”, with “tons of accessories”; plus “seriously addictive fries”, “thick milkshakes”, and “more soda flavours than is reasonable”. “The eat-in experience is as depressing as McDonald’s”, though, in fact perhaps more so – “some branches have a strangely gloomy ambience” – but fans feel that “if you don’t mind 1980s-rock, a trip can still be surprisingly fun”.
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