Whaley Bridge, British, Modern - Restaurant Guide

2025 Review: This “brilliant inn on the fringe of the Peak District” was praised this year for its “well above average and varied fresh fare”, from a menu that skips happily from Chinese-style bao buns to Thai fish dishes and Indian-spiced cauliflower. “Dan, the owner, ensures a great atmosphere – as does a surprisingly large crowd of regulars” (plus their furry friends, this being a venue that is “very dog-friendly, which we really appreciated for our puppy’s first meal out!”). Directly next door is the owners’ more casual sister pub, The Paper Mill Inn, for pizzas, pies and regular pop-ups.

“In the beautiful foothills of the Peak District”, a “cosy pub with its open fire, good draft beers and, importantly, a kitchen that can cook fish”, whether you go for Josper-roasted catch or a slap-up fish ’n’ chips. Far from a neophyte, the venue has graced this village since way back in the mid-1700s, with less antique additions including a new beer cellar and three boutique bedrooms.

2022 Review: Patrick Hannity's decade-old spin-off from his Manchester original is less well known than its progenitor but is “usually excellent”, too; the food is “light, balanced and filled with flavour”, incorporating produce from his Peak District farm.

2023 Review: Fooderati insider Thom Hetherington was amongst those sending out an SOS on behalf of this well-regarded neighbourhood restaurant in his hometown, which was gutted by fire in September 2022. By the end of the month it had crowdfunded the money to re-open and restore its mix of funky small plates (typically you would order 7-8 in a meal), plus gins, cocktails and a thoughtful small selection of wines.

“Very modern, Scandi-style with much foraging and fermenting” characterise the dishes at Sam Buckley’s famous foodie destination, which occupies the “beautiful”, airy space of a brick-walled former coffee warehouse in central Stockport, complete with bright windows and hip post-industrial vibes. It’s all “very well done and service is very good” too, but it’s never inspired the vast volume of feedback that its illustrious reputation would imply, perhaps due to what has historically been the high expense of dining here. Perhaps that’s all about to change, though, as in September 2025 the venue announced a major change of gear, with a considerably cheaper, new five-course sharing menu for £75 per person, with the aim stated on its website of “a format that feels more open, more generous and more relaxed”. What’s more: “The chefs’ table will always be open to walk-ins, offering wines and cocktails by the glass, along with a bar menu for those who just want a drink and a small bite”. More reports on the new approach please!

“As always, this stalwart remains the best meal you can enjoy in South Manchester”, according to admirers of Patrick Hannity’s classy West Didsbury brasserie, which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year – “they just get everything right without bragging about it”, delivering “delicious food without unnecessary complications”. The venue has a large and longstanding fan club, but also picks up new converts (“I’d never quite got the appeal before but on my last visit each course was excellent”). Top Menu Tip – “save some space for the sublime courgette fritters”.

“Surrounded by regenerated mills and terraced houses, from the days of the industrial revolution”, Richard Withington’s “trendy but likeable” Ancoats favourite “serves small plates to be shared” at “a perfect pace” in a “relaxed, modern dining room” and is nowadays in our Top-100 most commented-on UK restaurants in our annual diners’ poll outside London. “The kitchen knows how to cook and manage to consistently keep the standard up” – “the conception and execution of each dish is faultless” and the whole enterprise “manages to feel both forward looking and familiar, while offering exceptional value for money”. (“I was made so welcome as a solo diner that I wouldn’t hesitate to eat here alone again, but will definitely be bringing friends!”).

“Great to have a restaurant of this quality in the North West” – Simon Martin won his place in the history books in 2019 when he ended Manchester’s 40 years of pain without a Michelin star with his creation of this award-winning Ancoats champion. By design, there’s a “chilled” ambience created by the large space, where chefs and diners co-mingle naturally as a result of the open plan layout incorporating the kitchen (to ensure that ‘traditional barriers are broken in physical and thoughtful senses’). The cuisine is characterised by its “interesting and innovative approach with some unusual and unique flavours” and enhanced by the “superb” service. Of course, it’s not super-cheap, but no-one seems to begrudge this. The ‘Complete’ tasting menu is £175 per person, with a cut down ‘Extracts’ version available for £110 per person (and at lunch there’s a menu for £70 per person).

Amongst the newly cleaned and polished dark satanic mills of Ancoats sits The Edinburgh Castle – an early 19th-century pub rescued and skillfully restored with a large bar on the ground floor, and a dining room on the first floor serving pub food with a thoroughbred touch. Try the Sunday roast – “this pub has never done it better in its 200 years!”

As culinary icons go, this fine, Grade II space at the heart of Manchester’s most famous ‘dowager’ hotel is certainly up there – an impressive, high-ceilinged chamber where Mr Rolls met Mr Royce on the road to creating the UK’s most famous industrial company in 1904; and until 1957 an early recipient of the city’s first Michelin star. In recent times, Great British Menu winner, Adam Reid, has done his damndest to regain its premier ranking and some fans agree that his “excellent cooking deserves some special recognition as it is stronger than some Michelin star places”. All the menus here are in a tasting format and highly ambitious – there’s the twelve-course ‘Tipsy’ menu for £145 per person or a longer ‘Signature’ menu at £215 per person. The odd reporter considers it “expensive” but custom doesn’t seem to be in short supply. With its “bangin’ soundtrack”, moody lighting, 1970s-metal album menu typography and pared down table settings the seeming aim is to do everything possible to crush the idea that you’re eating somewhere stuffy.

2024 Review: TV chef James Martin’s over-18s-only, industrial-chic flagship shares a home in the historic Great Northern Warehouse with Manchester235 Casino; the location is “slightly odd”, to be fair, “but once you’re seated in the restaurant you forget about it” – and can focus on the “absolutely delicious food” (be it an “excellent tasting menu” or slap-up afternoon tea).

2022 Review: “An amazing bar and signature cocktails” are hailed in early reports on this two-year-old haunt in the characterful arches beneath Manchester Central station, from the people behind the successful Manchester Gin brand. Though its selection of small plates is not the main point, nor is it an afterthought.

You step into history at this Manchester institution, founded in 1868 and with a menu of Victorian chop house classics (steak ’n’ kidney, Barnsley chop…), a “great wine list and good ale, too” – you can also rub shoulders at the bar with L.S. Lowry, who dropped in every day for lunch during his lifetime and is now a permanent fixture in the form of a life-size statue cast in bronze by Preston-based artist Peter Hodgkinson. Top Menu Tip – you have to try the corned beef hash.

Open in 2023 in the former premises of a pre-Victorian bank, this local two-year-old received a boost in July 2025 from The Times’s Giles Coren, who was strong-armed into a visit by former Tory minister Edwina Currie, now a colleague of his at Times Radio, to test her insistence that Derbyshire is “the fine dining capital of the civilised world”. The review detailed some “well-balanced and tasty” dishes all at “single digit price[s not seen] on a menu since before lockdown”. Our feedback is too thin for a rating but backs up Edwina’s enthusiasm.

“In an attractive old cotton-spinning and paper-making village” – reached after “a lovely drive over the Derbyshire dales” (although it’s also “full of walkers” who’ve arrived on foot) – a “wonderfully welcoming gastropub” run by husband-and-wife team Luke & Emma Payne. The former oversees dishes that are “packed with flavour”.

“In the middle of nowhere but definitely worth the journey” (even on a “very wet, very dark winter’s night”), Britain’s fifth oldest pub – formerly ‘Ye Olde Bull’s Head’, which was brought back to life by current owner Raab Dykstra-McCarthy, having fallen into disrepair in 2007. By all accounts, the 12th-century inn is a “special place for exquisite food” (“small and large plates eaten with a great view of the countryside”), and even if you go on “pie & quiz night, when pies dominate the mains”, all the cooking is “faultless”. Bonus points for the “well-spaced tables and calm atmosphere, so you can have a good conversation without having to shout”. They also have five bedrooms and a cottage if you wish to avoid a repeat of the “testing” journey by night.

This “superb country-house restaurant-with-rooms is a real delight”, with a “small-but-perfectly formed à la carte menu”, “professional and friendly staff”, and wines selected by sommelier-owner Alistair Myers – set in a “peaceful village in the Peak District”, it is an “offshoot of the venerable Rafters in Sheffield”. Last year Myers acquired the Old Eyre Arms in Hassop, an ivy-clad pub he passed regularly on the road between the two Rafters.

2024 Review: Opposite a twelfth-century church, this “really good” village outfit is “exactly what you’d want from a good-quality pub”: a “relaxed, friendly and chatty” spot turning out some “perfectly judged” food (not least fish ’n’ chips, though the desserts are also “technical and brilliantly flavoured”).

“Vegan (or vegetarian) and brilliant” – well-travelled chef Eddie Shepherd “works alone, cooking and serving with real passion and exciting techniques”, creating twelve-course meals for £125 per person that are “a must for exemplary plant-based cuisine”. No more than eight guests gather in the dining room of his South Manchester home for each meal – and many are prepared to wait three months for the privilege. In late 2024 it was listed as one of the best 100 vegetarian restaurants in the world by the We’re Smart Green Guide. Top Tip – it’s BYOB, and there’s a fridge if you need to chill your drink.