Whitley Bay, British, Modern - Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: 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.

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.

Nothing but praise for Masterchef: The Professionals finalist Dave Coulson’s ambitious but “down to earth” outfit, est. 2013 on a Jesmond shopping parade. The punchy modern British cooking is “always first-class”, with a “great variation of dishes” and a “reliably interesting tasting menu, all with a North-East twist” (and notably good value too). Numerous best meals of the year are reported here by a more-than-local fan base.

2022 Review: You wouldn’t necessarily expect it from the unassuming façade, but former River Café alum Nick Grieve's “small but adventurous” bistro on the main road through Jesmond turns out some “outstanding quality” food – currently in the format of a six-course, no-choice menu (£59).

“Really interesting small plates” that are “imaginative and generous considering the price point” are the attraction at this Ouseburn venue from self-taught chef Anna Hedworth, who started out with supper clubs and worked at Rochelle Canteen before launching initially in a shipping container, moving into permanent premises eight years ago. “The menu varies to suit the season, available ingredients and the chef’s inspiration, and you can always guarantee something a bit different or unusual”. Top Menu Tip – “beef shin croquette served with a blue cheese cream is a star dish”.

“Such a cool, vibey place to eat”, on the Quayside, replete with “moody lighting” and “knowledgeable, friendly and attentive” staff. Inspired by the South of France and Italy, it’s part of the local empire of NE culinary star Terry Laybourne, who received his Freedom of Newcastle scroll – the city’s highest honour – in 2025; on the menu, a “fantastic, well-explained, and unpretentious wine list with useful information, e.g., how to remove red wine stains from your shirt” and “adventurous food” (it’s “always worth ordering off the specials board”). It’s particularly recommended as a “great location for pre-theatre dining right next door at the Live Theatre, whose toilets it shares!”.

2022 Review: This Art Deco (1938) landmark (incorporating Newcastle's only surviving indie cinema) closed for much of the COVID-19 pandemic and started a phased reopening in August 2021. The coffee rooms are in the final phase following a new floor and refurbishment of furnishings throughout the building.

A “lively Quayside establishment” (formerly local beacon ’21 Queen Street’) that has been in the hands of Andy Hook and chef-patron Troy Terrington for nearly a decade now; it’s named after two stalwarts of the city’s Victorian architecture, who designed the building in 1863. Reports in recent times have been a tad up and down, but there was mostly praise this year for the “excellent food and staff”, with “some unusual dishes” on the menu (the latter being better suited to carnivores than vegetarians).

“Well established now as THE place in Newcastle for a reliable top gastronomic experience” – Kenny & Abbie Atkinson’s Quayside venue opened in 2010 and its fame precedes it nowadays (despite competition from its upstart sibling and neighbour, Solstice). It occupies a 16th-century townhouse near the Tyne Bridge and provides “Michelin star quality to all aspects of the meal combined with a friendly, unstuffy atmosphere making all diners feel comfortable and well looked after”.This year’s worst critique was that culinary results are “sound if slightly underwhelming”; more common, though, was praise for “very elegant and well-presented food. with amazing tastes and textures”.

A “great backstreet restaurant”, amid a parade of shops in Jesmond, which is run by self-trained cook (she prefers the term to ‘chef’) Anna Hedworth, who has quite a reputation among foodies already owing to her previous haunt, the Cook House in nearby Ouseburn. In February 2025, FT critic Tim Hayward’s “transformational” visit brought him to utter the word “genius”, owing to the “absurd talent” of its lady patron, showcased in what our reporters deemed – slightly less prosaically – some “very well executed food” indeed, with “exciting cocktails” to match the small plates.

The name tells you a lot about Sam Betts’s crammed, tiny gaff, whose fairly un-promising Sandyford location would be easily overlooked, were it not for the stream of national press reviewers and guides that beat a path to its door. A small selection of eclectic appealing modern bistro dishes are scrawled up on the blackboard, alongside organic wines and craft beers.

“Blindingly good cooking throughout, with dishes that are inventive and playful” results in “adventurous, lively food that’s full of flavour and zing” at Kenny & Abbie Atkinson’s exceptional three-year-old, which sits next to its older sibling House of Tides (and nowadays scores similar quantities of feedback and high ratings). “Each dish is brought to your table by one of the chefs who chats you through the provenance and how they created and executed the dish. If this sounds pompous, it’s anything but; friendly explanations are sparkling with fun”. Top Menu Tips – “Scallop ever so delicately cooked in beef fat, topped with a fiery Thai glaze, deeply caramelised. Honey parfait with rye ice cream – the two flavours paired into a sort of sunny-summer-grass-meadow fantasy”. “A tiny smoked eel brandade with caviar, Granny Smith and dill, and served on a little metal tin lid (like a Caviar tin). The flavour just explodes and then is gone. Also a chewy beetroot croustade filled with pickled elderberries, toasted cumin and caraway seeds and finished with a horseradish crème fraîche and a pickled golden beetroot rose”.