Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Northumberland
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Northumberland restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 46 restaurants in Northumberland and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Northumberland restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Northumberland Restaurants
1. Sonnet
restaurant in Alnwick
41 Bondgate Without - NE66
This ambitious debut offers a 14-course set menu of ‘food we love to eat ourselves’ from Co Durham-born chef Gary McDermott and his partner, Claudia Mazareanu. The emphasis is on simplicity, the finest Northumberland produce, and a ‘refined take on familiar flavours’. Insufficient feedback for a rating this year, but it’s already a fave rave on TripAdvisor.
2. The Valley Junction 397
Indian restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
Old Jesmond Station, Archbold Terrace - NE2
The Valley Restaurants promise a unique and pleasurable dining experience in luxurious surroundings. Superbly presented authentic dishes from Bangladesh and the Indian subcontinent are served with impeccable style by attentive waiters. The Valley Restaurants are proud to have ...
4. Battlesteads
British, Traditional restaurant in Hexham
Wark on Tyne - NE48
2022 Review: Claiming to be the only hotel in the UK with its own onsite observatory – and enjoying a location with clear skies, north of Hexham – this rural pub with rooms occupies an eighteenth- century farmhouse and is consistently highly rated all round. The food is mostly superior pub grub, but there is a fancy five-course and eight-course menu too if you want to push the boat out.
5. 21
British, Modern restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
Trinity Gardens, Quayside - NE1
“They really know what they are doing” at this stalwart on the Quayside – and well they should, for it’s been a local fixture since 1988, when 21 Hospitality Group owner Terry Laybourne opened the first of his now expanded empire (most recently taking in Newcastle and York café spin-offs in tandem with department store Fenwick). While it’s not as starry as it once was, you’re still assured an “excellent meal” indebted to French classics and delivered by “well-informed staff”.
6. Dabbawal
Indian restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
69-75 High Bridge - NE1
“Deliciously spiced dishes from a varied menu” win continued praise for this brightly decorated and “very cheerful” venue near the Theatre Royal, which was an early pioneer of Indian street food. It also has a sibling in Jesmond.
7. SIX Rooftop
British, Modern restaurant in Gateshead
Baltic (Sixth Floor), South Shore Road - NE8
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”.
9. The Old Boat House Amble
Fish & seafood restaurant in Amble
Leazes Street - NE65
“A lovely setting on the Coquet estuary” makes Martin & Ruth Charlton’s 12-year-old quayside spot a popular choice for eating seafood (“their nearby Fish Shack is also great”). But one or two regulars are beginning to wonder if “it’s getting a bit too big” for comfort.
10. Hjem
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Wall
The Hadrian Hotel - NE46
“Exceptional” ‘new Scandi’-style cooking has won widespread acclaim for Swedish chef Alex Nietosvuori and his locally born partner Ally Thompson at their five-year-old restaurant-with rooms – a 24-seat dining room with open kitchen, “in a beautiful setting in the wilds of Northumberland”, close to Hadrian’s Wall. “The food is created with passion, delivered to the table with unbridled enthusiasm and reveals combinations, textures and flavours which are a sensory revelation”. The couple’s spectacular new purpose-built venue, Frejya, in a walled garden within the Close House estate at Heddon-on-the-Wall, is scheduled to open in late 2025.
11. The Ship Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Wylam
Main Road - NE41
2022 Review: A “super-friendly and efficient” stone-fronted country boozer, where chef Paul Johnson (a Nathan Outlaw alum) delivers a “great menu selection” that saw it walk off with a CAMRA Pub of the Year accolade not too long ago.
12. The Rat Inn
British, Traditional restaurant in Hexham
Anick - NE46
Set on the village green in a charming hamlet a few miles from Hexham, a “lovely old inn” with a “warm fire in winter” and a conservatory offering sweeping views over the Tyne Valley. The blackboard-listed cuisine features some “very good local produce, e.g., game and fish” (plus “fantastic steaks”) making it “a favourite” in these parts; it’s been ably steered by chef Phil Mason and FOH wife Karen since 2007, and is the follow-up to their acclaimed former venture the Green Room, which occupied the old luggage office at Hexham railway station.
13. The Valley
Indian restaurant in Corbridge
Old Station Hs - NE45
This “lovely local Indian” is “a proper restaurant in a converted old railway station” (and also has spin-offs in Newcastle and Hexham). “It’s a favourite to combine with a day in the Tyne valley, followed by a couple of beers, then an excellent curry here”. Book their well-known ‘Passage to India’ for £56.50 per person, including travel from Newcastle, orders taken on the train, meet-and-greet at the station, and your meal (not including drinks).
14. Bouchon Bistrot
French restaurant in Hexham
4-6 Gilesgate - NE46
Loire Valley native Greg Bureau is behind this “well-established and well-regarded” Gallic bistro: a jewel of this “lovely market town” (especially since they added a glass balcony) and long reputed for its “highly reliable” cooking and “tremendous value” sets. Linger over a meal amid vintage French posters and then amble over to the “fine abbey a short walk away”.
15. Adrianos Fortuna
Mediterranean restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
90 High Street - NE3
2021 Review: A high street outfit ‘bringing a dash of Sardinian sunshine to Gosforth’, as their website proclaims – and which is well-regarded locally; they have now opened up an on-site deli, should you prefer to take away.
16. Jesmond Dene House
British, Modern restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
Jesmond Dene Rd - NE2
This “lovely hotel” in a “beautiful” Grade II-listed Arts and Crafts house remains a satisfying getaway, being particularly “perfect for afternoon tea”. There are several dining spaces, ranging from a bar offering light snacks to the dedicated Fern Dining Room for heartier meals.
17. Fern
British, Modern restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
Jesmond Dene House, Jesmond Dene Road - NE2
2022 Review: Scant reports – too few for a rating – on this ‘upmarket neighbourhood dining room’ from ex-House of Tides chef Danny Parker, in the venerable Jesmond Dene location once part-owned by Terry Laybourne. In addition to dinner service and Sunday lunch, daily afternoon tea is a feature.
18. Dabbawal
Indian restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
1 Brentwood Mews - NE2
2022 Review: “Delicious, interesting dishes” inspired by the street food delivered by Mumbai’s ‘dabbawala’ bicycle delivery men, are to be found on the menu at this brightly coloured Jesmond venue with an open kitchen and verandah. It’s a spinoff of the city-centre original.
19. Cal's Own
Pizza restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
36 Acorn Road - NE2
2021 Review: Fans of this puntastic pizzeria may be going OTT when they hail it as “probably the best pizza in the UK”. But Jesmond-born former joiner Calvin Kitchin and his brother Kerry take their trade seriously – their “good-value pizzas” are accredited by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana and cooked in a wood-fired Stefano Ferrara oven imported from Naples.
20. A Taste of Persia
Persian restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne
34 Osborne Road - NE2
2021 Review: The “excellent Persian food” at this “friendly” Jesmond spot wins high ratings for “one of the cheapest restaurants in Newcastle for cooking of high quality”. A more central branch near the station has closed down.
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