Sunderland Restaurant Guide

This Ouseburn outfit is “worth seeking out, even though it is off the beaten track”, for its “quirky but delicious food and really good service”. Founder Anna Hedworth worked at Quo Vadis and Rochelle Canteen in London before setting up in a shipping container in Newcastle, and moved on to the current open-kitchen venue six years ago.

2022 Review: Consistently inconsistent ratings on the food front were echoed again this year (reports ranging from “quite ordinary” and “pricey” to “very good”), but by common consent the “amazing views” and “plentiful outdoor seating” make this upscale art gallery restaurant “worth the visit”.

An unabashedly carnivorous outfit in a “fantastic location on the quayside” – part of the container-bound By The River Brew Co. – housing brewery, street-food market, and bike shop. The “brilliant food is cooked over flame”, with a “lovely use of different cuts” doled out in “hearty servings” (“the pig’s head crackling is so plentiful you have to share it with other tables!”).

“This lively pub close to Newcastle’s waterfront” has an “excellent bar downstairs where local brewery offerings can be tried with proper pork scratchings, scotch eggs or a pint of prawns. Upstairs offers more choice and a good wine list” – “I’m looking for an excuse to visit Newcastle again so I can return” to this “great venue”. Through a unique arrangement, a proportion of its profits helps fund the Live Theatre next door, a haven for new dramatic writing.

2021 Review: Terry Laybourne’s 21 Group closed the beloved Caffè Vivo in August 2018 to much local ire, but after a remarkably short interregnum, the space was “reinvented as an imaginative, wine-led tapas restaurant” (“still with an Italian slant”, and featuring a new bar and metro-chic décor). Reassuringly, head chef Emanuele Lattanzi, a carry-over from the Vivo days, oversees the menu, which dances about all over the place (mac ‘n’ cheese, black pudding, etc.) but so far it’s the “fascinating wine list” which draws all the comments.

Troy Terrington’s casual fine-dining venue (sibling to Blackfriars and Hinnies in Whitley Bay) occupies the well-known Quayside address which became famous as ‘21 Queen Street’ (long RIP) in days gone by. There was the odd “disappointing” experience this year, but for the most part feedback praises its “excellent” cuisine, including the optional five-course and seven-course tasting menus (£40/£65 per person lunches and Thursday, £60/£75 per person at weekend dinners) praised for “some exceptional dishes”.

2023 Review: This 2021 opening is “a brilliant restaurant innovation in Tynemouth village to add to Adam Riley’s successful (and widely acclaimed) beach Fish Shack” – because “for all the hoo ha, who wants to sit on a beach with the wind whipping in from the North Sea? Better be tucked up inside, where you can have an excellent selection of small plates, often using parts of the fish (e.g. cod jaw) that are otherwise discarded”. “Dishes range from simple small plates made to order at the ground floor wet fish counter, to an outstanding 5-course themed meal in the first-floor dining room, allowing chef to showcase his creative skills using the latest catch.”

“Some of the best and most authentic Indian food you can get” in these parts awaits at this “really good addition to the varied Quayside scene”, founded in 2020; while superficially there’s a “similar menu and ambience to Dishoom”, the point of pride here is the Josper grill, which lends its smoky magic to the menu of retro regional classics.