Shortlist announced ahead of inaugural Good Food Guide Awards 2024

The Good Food Guide, internationally recognised as the leading authority on Britain’s restaurants for over 70 years, will celebrate 2024’s crop of ‘World Class’ and ‘Exceptional’ restaurants alongside special award winners in a ceremony at London’s historic Theatre Royal Drury Lane this month.

The Good Food Guide Awards 2024, in partnership with Resy, will be held on Tuesday 30th January in the centre of London’s West End. The ceremony will see more than 200 prestigious industry guests from across England, Scotland and Wales gather to hear which restaurants have made it into in the Guide’s ‘Exceptional’ and ‘World Class’ categories, and who will be crowned winner of seven special awards, including ‘Best New Restaurant, ‘Best Front Row Seat’, ‘Best Farm to Table Restaurant’ and ‘Chef to Watch’.

Restaurants shortlisted for The Good Food Guide Awards 2024 include Simon Rogan’s Our Farm, Crocadon and Osip in the ‘Best Farm to Table Restaurant’ category, and Tomos Parry’s Mountain, Higher Ground in Manchester and Tommy Banks’ Abbey Inn in the ‘Best New Restaurant’ category. Pine, Ynyshir, L’Enclume, The Sportsman and Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons will be competing for the title of ‘Restaurant of the Year’.

The Good Food Guide, an institution of 73 years standing was acquired in 2021 by Knife & Fork Media, which owns hospitality trade media platform CODE. Publisher Adam Hyman said of the experience:

“I was delighted that we were able to become the new owners of The Good Food Guide and provide a future for such an iconic brand. We’ve had to make some big changes; the Guide is now digital only, our editorial has expanded and we have introduced events for our readers. We have a fine balance to strike between modernising the Guide for a new audience and retaining the importance of longform restaurant criticism.”

Over the past two years, The Good Food Guide has set their inspectors back to work, anonymously inspecting and reviewing thousands of restaurants in all corners of the country. All inspection meals are paid for in full by the Guide to protect its legacy of honest, unbiased criticism. With an overhauled scoring system, establishments that pass muster are now awarded a rating of Local Gem, Good, Very Good, Exceptional and World Class. Only 39 restaurants across Britain will hold the rating of Exceptional or World Class, reflecting the extraordinary level of excellence required to reach this level.

Elizabeth Carter, editor of the Guide for the past 17 years commented: “New ownership, a modernised Good Food Guide. It’s a new era and, along with a revamped rating system, our awards have been overhauled to reflect the fast-paced changes in Britain's current gastronomic landscape. The Good Food Guide Awards 2024 are all about the sheer pleasure of good food in all its diversity. Our shortlisted restaurants are setting the standard by which all others should be measured.”

The Good Food Guide Awards 2024 will be hosted at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane whose owner, Lord Lloyd Webber, is a long time advocate of The Good Food Guide. He comments, “As someone who met The Good Food Guide founder Raymond Postgate and owns a copy of every published Good Food Guide, I am thrilled that The Good Food Guide has made its way into the capable hands of Adam and the team at Knife & Fork Media. It’s an institution and a guiding light in the industry of food criticism and restaurant discovery.”

The complete shortlist of special award nominees is as follows:

Best New Restaurant
Dorian, London
Higher Ground, Manchester
Lark, Suffolk
Mountain, London
Mýse, North Yorkshire
Noble Rot Mayfair, London
The Abbey Inn, North Yorkshire

Best Front Row Seat
Aulis London, London
Barrafina Dean Street, London
Behind, London
Harrods Dining Hall, London
The Sea, The Sea Chef’s Table, London

Best Farm to Table Restaurant
Coombeshead Farm, Cornwall
Crocadon, Cornwall
Osip, Somerset
Our Farm, Cumbria
The Goods Shed, Kent
The Small Holding, Kent

Drinks List of the Year
Allium at Askham Hall, Cumbria
Furna, Brighton
Noble Rot, London
The Kitchin, Edinburgh

Chef to Watch
James Carn - Lark, Suffolk
Max Coen - Dorian, London
Kasia Piątkowska - Tropea, Birmingham
Rob Sachdev - Upstairs at Landrace, Bath
Wesley Smalley - Seasonality, Maidenhead
Jamie Smart - Cadet, London

Restaurant of the Year
L’Enclume, Cumbria
Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Oxfordshire
Pine, Northumberland
The Sportsman, Kent
Ynyshir, Wales

Most Exciting Food Destination
Winning destination to be announced at the Awards

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