Coventry Restaurant Guide

“Adam Bennett produces dishes of supreme quality, prepared with flair and skill” at this top-class gastroboozer, whose dining room occupies a 19th-century former schoolroom, and whose bar occupies an old butcher’s. It received nothing but praise this year for what is a “fantastic dining experience and great value for money despite the ‘cost of living crisis’”. It’s worth noting, however, that in January 2025, owner Andreas Antona announced his retirement after 50 starry years in the industry, putting the legendary Simpson’s in Brum up for sale; while the latter’s fate remains in the balance, one regular here is “confident the superlative standards will be maintained” – and there’s a good chance they will, given that Antona has happily decided to carry on overseeing this venture alongside other personal projects.

2023 Review: “A great surprise! An authentic Italian restaurant with a broad menu of very good food and wine” – “delivered with panache and generosity”. The “beautiful and romantic decor, with cherry trees garlanded with tiny lights” only adds to the appeal.

This “fabulous French bistro” with a “lovely ambience” is owned by Aubrey Allen, the family-run butcher’s to the Royal Family, so “delicious” meats such as dry-aged steaks are a given, and feature alongside all the traditional fare you’d expect if this was a corner of France. It’s “excellent value” too – “their (£28, three-course) set menu on Tuesday ‘Auberge Nights’ is not to be missed”, with “wonderful service” contributing to a “very pleasant evening” indeed.

2022 Review: It’s “nice to eat outside by the canal on a sunny day” at this well-run casual spot, with a useful menu of grills and sarnies.

2022 Review: This former fishmonger, butcher, casino, tailor etc. is acclaimed by locals for its “perfect fine dining in an intimate setting”. After pandemic lockdowns, it’s “back with a subtle but impactful makeover and a great new tasting menu” – now the only option, and ringing in at £65 for six courses.

2022 Review: Hilary & Barrie Cload's homage to Royal Thai cuisine (est. 2004) enjoys a “very pleasant” art gallery setting, and its “wonderful, beautifully presented” food just “never disappoints”; they also do a “great deal involving ‘lunch boxes’ which are delicious”.

Ex-Simpson’s chef Matt Cheal decamped from smaller premises in Henley-in-Arden to the former Jacques fine dining restaurant in Knowle two years back, gaining a cocktail and tapas bar along the way. There’s a lot of love for the “wonderfully plush surroundings (my old branch of HSBC!) which lend any visit the feeling of a special occasion”, while early reports on the food – à la carte or a tasting menu – praise some “beautifully presented” dishes (even if some feel “the flavours aren’t quite as impressive as the surroundings”).

Hampton Manor continues to re-shuffle and modernise its food offering, and this February 2025 newcomer is the successor to Stuart Deeley’s ‘Smoke’ (RIP) in the same space: the Victorian furnace house of its walled kitchen garden. Now under chef David Taylor, he offers a three-course menu for £85 per person, or a ‘Taste of Kynd’ five-course menu for £110 per person. It opened too late to generate sufficient reports in our annual diners’ poll for a rating, but all early feedback is upbeat: “it seems very much like a continuation of Smoke – and that isn’t a criticism – a rustic-style rendering of fine food, with pleasing atmosphere and service”. On the food front: “A starter of Cornish crab with salted turnip and pickled fennel was delicious, as was a thoroughly enjoyable main dish of beautifully cooked line-caught gurnard with a very tasty bisque, fennel and soppressata. Dessert of Tipsy cake soaked in Organic Welsh rum didn’t quite have the hit of alcohol I should have liked but it was a lovely cake and well matched with brown butter ice cream”.

“All round a great experience” with “great attention to detail” – this brave three year old “continues to deserve its excellent reputation” and to justify the pivot made at this Warwickshire hotel to locating its main dining experience in the very walls of the “lovely” Victorian Walled Garden, complete with cooking over fire and the use of ingredients like carrot nectar, apple kombucha, and pickled magnolia. One long-term fan feels that “David Taylor’s food now seems to have reached the point he was aiming for with each of the fourteen dishes of the Tasting Menu sophisticated, original, clever and delicious (more mature in approach than when it first opened which is not surprising)”: “well crafted with many high points”.

“You can’t go wrong for a unique dining experience with Gerald” say fans of the owners ‘Boutique Cocina’ which he launched in 2017 after his return from a 30-year sojourn in Spain. “You get what the chef decides” as part of a ‘discovery menu’ – “course after course of inventive and delightful dishes served with continental flair” (“small plates based around mainly wood fired cooking”). The result is “different” and it’s a “nice, intimate venue” too.

This “lively local bar and restaurant with excellent food” is part of an owner-operated hotel midway between Warwick’s main attractions, the racecourse and the castle. The name derives from the price charged for a cup of coffee and a tot of rum here when the Grand Union Canal was under construction in the early 1800s.